Sen. Tim Scott has been tasked with leading the effort to write a police reform bill for Senate Republicans.
Because Scott is the only black member of the Republican conference, liberals have suggested the GOP is exploiting his race for its political purposes.
On Wednesday, Scott tweeted his support for his leading role and criticized those who claim it’s all political.
“Not surprising the last 24 hours have seen a lot of ‘token’ ‘boy’ or ‘you’re being used’ in my mentions,” Scott tweeted. ‘Let me get this straight…you DON’T want the person who has faced racial profiling by police, been pulled over dozens of times, or been speaking out for YEARS drafting this?”
Scott said the Senate Democratic Caucus included only two African Americans, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.
“And don’t throw ‘you’re the only black guy they know’ at me either,” Scott tweeted. “There are only two black Democratic Senators, stop pretending there’s some huge racial diversity gap in the Senate. Ask my Dem colleagues what their staffs look like…I guarantee you won’t like the answer.”
Diversity advocacy groups have long criticized House and Senate lawmakers for failing to diversify their staffers. Staff for Harris and Booker are mostly nonwhite and are mainly black or Hispanic, according to data provided by Democrats.
Scott is drafting a bill that would, among other things, include the George Floyd/Walter Scott Notification Act, which would compel states to track and record the details, including race, of every police shooting. States that failed to track and report the data would lose federal funding. It would also require states to provide data on the use of no-knock warrants.
