Brown vows to be independent voice in Senate

WASHINGTON - Republican Scott Brown took over the seat of the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy yesterday, vowing to be an independent voice in a bitterly divided Senate.

Brown was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden in a Capitol Hill ceremony a week earlier than he originally planned, and just in time to plunge into a partisan fight over President Barack Obama's choice of a union attorney for a top labor job.

Brown's arrival in the Senate ends the Democrats' supermajority and gives the GOP 41 votes they can use to block President Barack Obama's agenda.

Depending on how Democrats set the Senate's calendar, Brown's first vote could be against the confirmation of Craig Becker, a lawyer for the Service Employees International Union, to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board, the federal panel that referees private sector labor-management disputes.

Republicans have held up Becker's confirmation for months, saying they fear he might use the post to make labor laws more union-friendly without congressional approval.

Brown, 50, a little-known former state senator, stunned the nation with his upset victory last month over favored Democrat Martha Coakley and put the 2010 midterm elections in play for a possible GOP takeover of Congress. Brown's win derailed Obama's health care overhaul and catapulted Brown onto the national stage.