Rep. Tim Scott, an ALEC Alum, Nominated to U.S. Senate

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Representative Tim Scott (R-SC), who was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as a state legislator and was voted into Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010, has been nominated to replace Jim DeMint in the U.S. Senate.

"I was a member of ALEC," Rep. Scott told the right-wing Washington Times earlier this year.

As a Congressman, Rep. Scott discussed impeaching President Obama over the debt ceiling negotiations and said he believes the federal government should "never" regulate guns "in any way." He has also been described as one of the most anti-union members of Congress, proposing a bill to strip the National Labor Relations Board of its power to limit employers' union-busting activities and co-sponsoring legislation that would kick families off food stamps if one member went on strike.

As the Center for Media and Democracy has documented, ALEC has been a key avenue for the National Rifle Association to advance its pro-gun agenda in the states, and has been a major proponent of anti-union legislation, with Michigan copying ALEC language verbatim for its recently enacted "right to work" laws.

"They were very receptive when I was a member of [ALEC]," Scott told the Washington Times.

Scott will replace Senator Jim DeMint, who is retiring from the Senate to lead the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank co-founded the same year as ALEC by the same person, Paul Weyrich. The Heritage Foundation is also an ALEC member, and at ALEC's meeting last month in Washington DC, the Heritage Foundation's James Sherk gave a presentation titled "how to limit union influence and expand worker choice."

Scott was appointed to DeMint's seat by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley who herself was an ALEC member when she was in the state legislature. As Bob Sloan has described at the Voters Legislative Transparency Project, Governor Haley appears to have become an ALEC "Legacy" member, which would allow her to maintain a formalized, ongoing relationship with ALEC even after leaving the state legislature.

Scott will be the first African-American to represent the South in the U.S. Senate since reconstruction.