Marcus Brown

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf’s choice to lead the Pennsylvania State Police responded to a battery of questions Wednesday from Republican senators who, like the troopers’ union, want the Democratic governor to withdraw Col. Marcus Brown as his nominee, while a Democrat accused Brown’s detractors of opposing the integration of the overwhelmingly white force.

The hourlong hearing on Brown’s nomination was a prelude to the Senate’s determination about whether Brown will lead the 6,000-person agency as its full and permanent commissioner, or whether he must continue to wear the title of acting commissioner.

Afterward, the Law and Justice Committee unanimously sent Brown’s nomination to the full Senate, but without a recommendation he be confirmed.

The hearing was also the first public airing of a litany of issues that Republicans, gun-rights advocates and current and former troopers have concerning Brown.

Brown was No. 2 in the Baltimore Police Department before becoming superintendent of the Maryland State Police under former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who is running for president.

Brown, 50, has liberal notions of law enforcement that have rankled Republicans, gun rights groups and rank-and-file troopers in a conservative law enforcement agency that is one of the nation’s largest.

He is an outsider in a police agency accustomed to its leaders being promoted from within, and he has offended troopers with his decision to wear the uniform, despite not attending the State Police Academy, as every trooper must.

Brown assured Republicans he supports the death penalty and Pennsylvania’s gun control laws, and he defended the legality of his early Baltimore city pension arrangement and dual tax breaks on family homes in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Accused by Sen. Eugene Yaw, R-Lycoming, of benefiting from situations in which the “law’s been bent in your favor,” Brown responded: “The law was not bent for me at all. I just followed the law that was in place.”

In any case, Yaw said he had been contacted by dozens of former troopers upset over Brown wearing the uniform.

“That’s a concern and I don’t know how you’re going to overcome that within the complement itself,” Yaw said.