Tim Scott

Who is Tim Scott?

Timothy Eugene "Tim" Scott is the junior United States Senator for South Carolina and a former member of the United States House of Representatives for South Carolina's 1st congressional district. A Republican, he became a senator in 2013 after South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley named him to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jim DeMint. He was elected to the House in November 2010 to the 112th Congress and served from 2011 to 2013. The first Republican African-American Representative from South Carolina since 1897 he was one of the two members of the 2010 freshman class chosen to sit at the House Republican leadership table. Scott, a fiscal and cultural conservative, ran for Congress on a platform of reducing federal spending and taxes. He was endorsed by Tea Party groups. Scott is running in a special election in 2014 for the final two years of DeMint's second term.

A graduate of Charleston Southern University, Scott owns an insurance agency and has worked as a financial advisor. He served one term in the South Carolina General Assembly and 13 years on the Charleston County Council.

Scott is one of only two African-American members of the United States Senate and the tenth African-American to serve in the United States Senate. Scott is the first African-American senator from the state of South Carolina and the first from the South since 1881. Scott took office in the Senate on January 2, a day before the rest of the freshmen, resulting in a seniority ranking of 88, several places ahead of where he would have been had he been inaugurated on the regular date. Scott was joined by a second African-American Senator in the 113th Congress when Mo Cowan was appointed to a U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts on February 1, 2013 and served until July 16, 2013. Scott is one of two African-American senators in the 113th Congress, alongside New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.