Sen. Tim Scott Says Dems Killed His Cop Bill for a Reason as Clear as the Nose on His Face

Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) says Democrats don’t want his landmark police reform bill to advance because – as he basically says in a Facebook video – he’s the wrong color and belongs to the wrong political party.

He’s not wrong. We’ve seen it before.

Democrats, especially then-Senator Joe Biden, didn’t want Clarence Thomas elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill “Thurgood Marshall’s seat” because, as Thomas puts it, “I was the wrong black guy.”

George W. Bush nominated Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit, just a step away from the U.S. Supreme Court, but Democrats didn’t want Republicans to have the privilege of putting a Hispanic judge in the SCOTUS pipeline. His nomination languished for years because he was “the wrong” Hispanic Harvard-trained lawyer.

Tim Scott knows the drill. He’s another “wrong black guy” for the Democrats. Like all the men named above, Scott possesses fatal flaws: He’s conservative and Republican.

Durbin: Tim Scott’s Bill Is ‘a Token’

Democrat leader, Senator Dick Durban, had the temerity to call Scott’s legislation “a token.”

“Let’s not waste this historic moment, this singular opportunity, let’s not do something that is a token.”

Sure, that’s not racist or anything.

It’s clear what he meant. Translation: We can’t let the Republicans do this. This is too big and besides, the black guy who’s suggesting it is in the GOP, so obviously he’s just “a token.”

The landmark piece of legislation, coming after the killing of George Floyd in police custody, is the Left’s 2020 election centerpiece and they can’t have it be penned by a Republican – especially one who’s black. It’s the Left’s allies out there rioting, looting, burning police stations and killing cops. Hey, this is OUR issue!

Besides, their thinking goes, there are no black Republicans. They aren’t real. They are invisible. The ones we see don’t really mean it. The media don’t report on them because it’s inconvenient to have the face of conservatism be a person of color. The blacks are in their camp, not the Republicans’.

Sure, that’s not racist or anything.

Scott: Democrats Wouldn’t Take Yes for an Answer

Scott went to Facebook to discuss the JUSTICE Act and why the Democrats killed it. He said he included more than 20 amendments requested by Democrats and then gave them a “manager’s amendment,” which means Democrats could add ANYTHING THEY WANTED to the bill.

But they didn’t.

The problem was, they weren’t looking for the “what,” they were looking at the “who.'” The challenge came down to a simple thing. Me. The Republican Party is not the party they want leading this debate. They want Democrats to do it after the election. As they said today, they believe they have a chance of winning back the White House and therefore, they will spend their time doing nothing until they win.

That’s shameful. That’s wrong. Unacceptable. But out of my control.

So, what do we do next? We go back to the drawing board. We look for a way to say to those kids, “we hear you, we see you, and we are going to act.’

Scott’s Says Dems Playing Election Year Politics

To be clear, Democrats were allowed to change Scott’s bill. They got most of what they wanted, or, as Scott says below, “80% of it.”

Marc Thiessen wrote that if Democrats actually cared about the issue of police brutality and George Floyd, they’d vote for Scott’s bill.

Scott’s legislation had already incorporated a number of Democratic proposals, including: making lynching a federal hate crime, creating a national policing commission to conduct a review of the U.S. criminal justice system; collecting data on use of force by police; barring the use of chokeholds by federal officers and withholding federal funds to state and local law enforcement agencies that do not similarly bar them; and withholding federal money to police departments that fail to report to the Justice Department when no-knock warrants are used. . . .

… Scott promised Democrats he would filibuster his own bill if they did not get votes they sought. As Scott explained in an impassioned floor speech, he even told Democrats he would vote to support some of their amendments, such as expanding the definition of chokeholds and collecting data not just on serious bodily injury and death but on all uses of force by police…

But he’s the wrong kind to advance it.

Scott sent a message about this on Twitter:

“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?”

Duh.

I’d say the cliched “let that sink in,” but I’m pretty sure you get the point. “Shameful” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

What Scott should do as a follow up is to suggest that the Senate office building, named for racist Richard Russell, be named for Hiram Revels, the first black senator … who naturally was a Republican.

Would Democrats dismiss that as “a token” as well?

Two With Tim: JUSTICE Act

I’m frustrated that Democrats put politics ahead of our country. Real police reform is needed, but they didn’t even want to give it a shot. Americans must know that we hear them, and we must do the right thing. #JUSTICEAct #TwoWithTim

Posted by Tim Scott on Thursday, June 25, 2020