FLASHBACK: Dem senate candidate was critical vote in confirming judge who tied voter ID to 'White supremacy'

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As the debate on voter ID and the SAVE America Act rages on in the Senate, a former Democratic senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, is facing heat from his political opponents as he runs to return to the Senate over his votes and positions on the election integrity issue.

"You know, it’s inconsistent to denounce White supremacy but not repudiate voter ID laws, to not repudiate the Muslim ban, to not repudiate ‘the wall,’" Natasha Merle, then nominee for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, said during a 2017 podcast, Fox News Digital reported during her confirmation process in 2022.

"These are all things that support and are grounded in White supremacy. The voter ID bills disproportionately impact Black and Brown voters. They disproportionately prevent Black and Latino voters from voting. So you cannot say you are not for White supremacy and at the same time be for disenfranchising Black and Latino voters."

Additionally, Merle appeared to compare today's voter ID laws to "dogs and whips" being used to control minority populations in a 2020 speech to college students on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

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Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, during a campaign event at the Steubenville City Building in Steubenville, Ohio, on Friday, Oct. 11, 2024.  (Justin Merriman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"We cannot lose sight of states such as Alabama, Texas, Florida that have created new barriers to make voting harder, including by eliminating early voting, passing restrictive voter ID laws, and purging legal voters from their rolls — all of this happening with the implicit and sometimes explicit support of the Justice Department," Merle said. 

Despite these comments, Merle was confirmed as a federal judge in 2023 by a 1-vote margin with the support of then-Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is currently running a campaign to return to the Senate after losing his seat in 2024, and no Republican support.

"That's a shocking, radical point of view," Ohio GOP incumbent Sen. Jon Husted, who Brown is trying to unseat, told Fox News Digital about Merle’s comments. "I didn't really know much about that particular judge, but I'm shocked to learn those facts. I'll just say this, when you look at the polling data, 60 to 70% of African-American and Hispanic voters support the idea of voter ID."

Democrat opposition to voter ID was brought to the forefront of the news cycle earlier this month when Husted, during the debate about the SAVE America Act, attempted to pass a standalone voter ID bill through unanimous consent in a move to test Democratic claims they don’t oppose voter ID but rather take issue with other measures of the bill.

The measure would have enacted a nationwide voter ID requirement, though 36 states already have similar rules on the books. The Ohio Republican said citizens could use a state-issued driver’s license, a U.S. passport or valid military or tribal ID to meet the requirement.

Democrats blocked the measure on the Senate floor. 

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Senator Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025.  (Getty Images)

"I gave them a simple, clean, straightforward proposal, and then they blocked it, and then when we took it to a roll call vote, every single Democrat voted against it, thus proving that they were unwilling to put their words into action when given the choice," Husted said, adding that Democrats are "controlled" by the "radical left" wing of the party. 

Shortly after the showdown, Brown called voter ID, which is utilized in Ohio, one of the "unnecessary barriers that threaten the ability of hardworking Ohioans to vote early, mail in their ballots, or vote on Election Day."

Husted told Fox News Digital that Brown "consistently voted in lockstep with the radical left of his party, which are out of touch with how people in Ohio live their lives on a daily basis."

"During the Biden years, Sherrod Brown and Democrats let over 10 million people into this country, many of them not properly vetted, many of them not here legally, many of those who have the ability to get on voter rules in states where they don't properly maintain voter rules," Husted said. "Because understand, in places like California, you can vote simply with a signature. All you have to do is come up with a signature that looks close to the person who's properly registered and you can cast a ballot. That's the kind of stuff we're trying to solve."

A Fox News poll released in September 2025 found that 84% of registered voters said photo ID should be required to prove citizenship before voting.

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Natasha C. Merle, nominee to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on judicial nominations in the Dirksen Building on Wednesday, April 27, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Ohio’s current Secretary of State, Republican Frank LaRose, also called out Brown’s "unnecessary barrier comment" in a post on X saying, "Americans support photo ID, and Ohio proves it works."

Husted, who previously served as Ohio’s secretary of state, told Fox News Digital that Democrat claims of racial "disenfranchisement" haven’t occurred in his state with voter ID.

"In the last election, we had the second-highest turnout in a presidential election of the last four presidential elections," Husted said. "It clearly doesn’t suppress voters and I’m highly confident that Hispanic and African American voters are just as capable of using a photo ID as anyone else."

Fox News Digital reached out to Brown’s campaign for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller and Adam Pack contributed to this report.