Who is Amen Brown, the state representative running for Philadelphia mayor?

West Philadelphia State Rep. Amen Brown is running for Philadelphia mayor as a moderate Democrat who has a tough-on-crime, pro-development platform.

Brown, 35, is the youngest candidate in the race. He has been in the General Assembly for two years, and lacks the citywide name recognition that other candidates have generated. But he is backed by some deep-pocketed supporters, and his backers believe he has a path to the Mayor’s Office given his messaging on crime.

Here’s what to know about Brown.

Brown says he rose out of an impoverished upbringing in West Philadelphia, where he lived with seven siblings in a single-parent household. He says he was formerly incarcerated, struggled with food insecurity at times, and was shot in the back at a young age while he was standing near his Philadelphia home.

He went on to undertake a series of business and real-estate ventures that saw varying levels of success and left a trail of debt, lawsuits, and jilted partners.

In 2020, he launched a bid to represent what was then the 190th House district, which over one year saw two representatives resign after being charged with crimes.

The incumbent who replaced them, Democrat G. Roni Green, was expected to prevail. But she’d been in office for just a few months, and Brown was listed first on the ballot in a four-way race.

For weeks, Brown criss-crossed the district, delivering masks and sanitizer to residents as the COVID-19 pandemic was raging. Then, despite raising less than $10,000 in mostly small-dollar contributions, Brown won the primary by 600 votes. He went on to decisively win the general election.

» READ MORE: Who is running for Philadelphia mayor in 2023?

Since taking office in January 2021, Brown has championed a handful of Democratic legislative priorities, including marijuana legalization. He introduced legislation that would eliminate medical copays for incarcerated people, and he authored a bill to halt sheriff’s sales in the city during the pandemic.

He’s also antagonized some members of his own party. In 2021, he introduced legislation that would have established new mandatory minimum sentences for people with prior convictions who are found guilty of possessing an illegal gun. It also would have made it harder for people charged with such offenses to be released on bail.

Such policies have, over decades, gradually fallen out of favor with Democrats and even some pro-reform Republicans who say mandatory sentences are inflexible and don’t allow judges to consider a defendant’s circumstances.

Brown was also the only House Democrat to vote for a bill that was backed by charter-school proponents and would have created a voucher program for children attending schools that have low cumulative test scores. After the vote was tabulated, Brown switched to vote against the legislation.

He has said this his priorities as mayor would be controlling and preventing violent crime, reforming the tax structure for businesses, incentivizing developers to build more affordable housing, and creating an aggressive blight removal program.

Brown is expected to get a boost from business interests and private developers.

His candidacy was announced in December by New York City real estate developer Marty Burger, who introduced Brown at a fund-raiser in a Manhattan cigar bar. Sources said that Burger, who has developed in Brown’s House district, planned to pour millions of dollars into a super PAC to make Brown the mayor.

Other attendees at the fund-raiser included former State Sen. Vince Fumo, a Democrat, and former State House Speaker John Perzel, a Republican. Val DiGiorgio, a former chair of the state Republican Party, was also there, along with George Bochetto, a Republican who ran for U.S. Senate.

It’s unclear yet whether or how other groups may support Brown ahead of the mayoral primary.

Last year, when he ran for reelection, he raised more than $250,000 ahead of the primary, a sizable haul for a state House race. About a quarter of those dollars came from groups that promote charter schools and are linked to Jeffrey Yass, the state’s wealthiest man. Another significant chunk came from developers, including Burger.

Brown has been critical of District Attorney Larry Krasner and was one of two Democrats who sat on a House committee that hunted for grounds to impeach the progressive prosecutor. The panel released several reports attempting to tie the DA’s policies to rising rates of crime in the city.

When Krasner was impeached by the House, Brown was marked absent. Impeachment proceedings in the state Senate were suspended indefinitely earlier this month.