When South Carolina’s Jim DeMint quit the U.S. Senate, he handpicked his successor: Republican Congressman Tim Scott. The fact that Scott is African-American is becoming as much of an issue as the similarity of his politics to those of DeMint and his Tea Party flock.
In a New York Times op-ed this week, University of Pennsylvania political science professor Adolph Reed took Scott and his fellow Republicans to task, writing that the GOP “will not gain significant black support unless they take policy positions that advance black interests,” adding that “no number of Tim Scotts—or other cynical tokens—will change that.” This week, our weekly open letter was delivered by guest host Joy Reid to the future senator from South Carolina, in the hope that he will somehow shuck that label.
Dear Senate-designate Tim Scott,
It’s me… Joy Reid.
Man, you definitely made some history in the deep south on Monday when Republican Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina appointed you to fill out two years of retiring Sen. Jim DeMint’s term. You’ll be the first black senator from the south since reconstruction, the first African-American Republican senator in more than three decades, and only the seventh African-American to serve as a U.S. senator. While your appointment is seen by some as a measure of “progress,” others have called you a mere token, elevated only to show that the GOP has gotten the diversity memo it missed this past election.
So, Mr. Scott, let’s move past whatever discussion there is of the historic nature of your appointment and talk about you. Let’s talk about your reaction to the deadly shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School. [You said,] “I think the solutions are not necessarily in new legislation, perhaps the solution starts with us examining the mental conditions of the person, and the persons in the past that desire to create the atrocities that we’ve seen recently…We should also look at an opportunity for us to engage this entire culture of moral decay and of violence.”
Wow. OK, let me get this straight. No new legislation?
You saw nothing about the shooting in Connecticut that should lead to new legislation? I ask only because I know you are, in fact, a fan of legislation–especially when it comes to guns. You were first elected to Congress just two years ago and yet you’ve already co-sponsored at least four pieces of legislation on guns:
1. House Bill 3814, which would prevent gun dealers from informing law enforcement about individuals making multiple gun purchases.
2. The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 that would make it possible for people to carry concealed firearms in almost every state.








