The Post and Courier - Tim Scott Wants to Fix Poverty, One Human Interaction at a Time

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By Emma Dumain

During a recent event on Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott began his remarks behind a microphone.

By the time he'd finished telling the audience of children's advocates the story of his upbringing -- son of a single mom, practically failing out of school, "mired in poverty" in North Charleston -- he was standing in front of the lectern.

"Can you hear me alright?" the South Carolina Republican said, coming alive outside the confines of his podium, free to pace the length of the aisle between the rows of chairs as he spoke.

He was more like a college professor or a motivational speaker than a member of the United States Senate. He was describing a moment he once witnessed, when two little girls went to the visitation room of a correctional facility to meet their incarcerated father for the very first time.

"Love at first sight cannot be understood until you're in that room, watching that dad find his daughters in the middle of the crowd and watching these kids run towards their dad," Scott said slowly, adding carefully timed pauses to let the image sink in.

"We are going to translate that experience into a legislative agenda," he continued, "so that those kids, technically without their fathers, have a chance to experience their maximum potential."

Scott already has an agenda, which he didn't neglect to mention. It's called the "Opportunity Agenda," and it's actually a series of Senate bills focused on doing just that. There's a bill that would give tax credits to employers who create apprenticeships. Another would give parents more flexibility on where they send their children to school. His most recent proposal has "opportunity" in its title and deals specifically with poverty.

The "Investing in Opportunity Act" would use the tax code to encourage long-term investments of private dollars into some of the country's poorest areas, or what Scott calls "distressed communities."

This is the bill Scott is promoting the hardest these days at speaking engagements, in op-ed pages and during committee hearings. It has co-sponsors in both parties and chambers. Outside groups are also enthusiastic.

But it will take more than enthusiasm to pass the Investing in Opportunity Act. Scott has to change how Republicans talk about poverty and how Americans think about the GOP.

"We need to have a new conversation'

One Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., Scott sat down with The Post and Courier in his "hideaway" -- a nondescript, small basement meeting room doled out to each senator to use in addition to their formal office space. Scott claimed he didn't use his much; he had to follow an aide through the dimly lit hallways to find it.

But upon arrival he immediately made himself comfortable. He settled into a corner of a small sofa and propped a pillow under one arm. He kicked off both shoes, to reveal brightly-colored polka dot socks, and propped his feet up on a chair he'd dragged over from the other side of the room. It's a politician's job to make a reporter feel at ease, or show constituents he or she is just like them. But colleagues who know Scott say his lack of pretense isn't an act.

"He is an extraordinarily relatable person," said U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a co-sponsor of the Invest in Opportunity Act and Scott's closest across-the-aisle ally. Booker said the two lawmakers were initially drawn to each other by virtue of being the only black members of the Senate. But they soon found themselves forming a bond outside that. They now chronicle their weight loss competition on Twitter, jointly push police body camera legislation and attend Bible studies hosted by U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.

"I've seen people relate to him in a particular way," Booker said of Scott. "I talk to Democrats about him and I'm always touched by how much love there is for him."

Scott is aware his ability to be relatable is an asset in talking about poverty to real people, which in his view will make a bigger difference than lecturing his colleagues.

"I am not limiting myself to this notion that all answers come through platforms and politics. My goal is to touch lives where they live and to find advocates and allies and resources through every major pillar of our society," he explained. "We need to have a new conversation about solving an old problem. We too often have a political conservation in election cycles. I want to have a long-distance run with friends who are gathering through different walks of life."

He also knows he has a unique perspective to share as a black Republican in a party full of white men, talking about an issue that has traditionally been owned by Democrats.

"(Republicans) sometimes talk in language where the unintended consequence is we're talking about business, or big business, where what we're actually talking about is creating more opportunities for people living paycheck to paycheck," Scott said. "The other problem is, the media has bought into the Democrats' paradigm that Republicans don't care about the poor, when we are in fact the party of the little man, the little girl."

"A wide net'

Scott isn't the only Republican talking about poverty. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been focused on the issue for years. In January, the two lawmakers actually co-hosted a poverty forum for presidential candidates in Columbia. Last month, Ryan rolled out a 37-page platform to lift Americans out of the lowest income brackets.

But Scott's strategy is different from Ryan's.

"My approach is to help the people who need help understand why I want to work for them. I'm selling the end user. (Ryan) is selling policy makers."

Scott started selling the end user in the first days of 2013, just after he was appointed from the House to the Senate by Gov. Nikki Haley. Suddenly responsible for a whole state rather than a district, he set out to meet his new constituents. Without telling even his staff, he started going undercover, mixing with those in the workforce. He worked a few hours at a shoe store; he rode a single bus line all over town chatting with passengers. At a Goodwill donation center in Greenville, a supervisor asked Scott if he was doing court-ordered volunteer work.

Now that he's been in office a few more years and his profile has grown, it's harder to speak to people as though he were just another salesman, stockroom employee or checkout clerk. He still makes the rounds, recently making coffee drinks as a barista in a Mount Pleasant Starbucks. Now he's there in his capacity as Sen. Scott, not "Tim."

Of course, these exercises have to do with reaching voters, not the people who will get his bill signed into law. But Scott insists it's part of the process. He said the goal was to start a conversation that will resonate back to Capitol Hill. He hopes the Invest in Opportunity Act will be incorporated into a related piece of legislation. That's already happened with provisions of Scott's bill to streamline workforce training programs, originally pitched as part of the Opportunity Agenda.

So Scott is holding court with journalists from The Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine. He's "making calls to friends in big business," but also presenting to a group of Pan-African-American women focused on female empowerment. In July, he plans to address a 4,000-member church in Alabama "about the opportunities that will unfold before the American eye over the next few decades. Part of that will be a "Matthew 25' approach," he said, "to helping the poor, the thirsty, the hungry, the widow."

The lengthy passage includes the lines, "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in ... I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

"We are going to focus this message in as many environments as possible in an attempt to create a big net, a wide net," Scott said, "and then we are going to pull it and we are going to watch people celebrate and get excited about a renaissance that's going to happen in places where a renaissance has not been in a very long time."

For those who would point out that Scott's job is to be a legislator, which necessitates a focus on legislation, Scott just smiled. "That's why I have a legislative agenda."

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