Look up to a lot. Hes a South Carolina senator. Im a North Carolina boy. And senator scott is somebody who in his initial primary, he defeated Strom Thurmonds son in that primary. We realized taking out in a primary the son of a longtime leader is something thats quite remarkable. I dont care if youre white, black or purple. But senator scott is a black man and only the fourth black man to serve as a u. S. Senator since reconstruction along with the great edward brook, barack obama, and my Law School Buddy cory booker. Theyve worked together in a number of efforts. Part of the area where senator scott has really reached across the aisle is the area were talking about today, criminal Justice Reform. And the senator opened some ears and minds in conservative circles where he talking about his experiences with the police, being stopped disproportionately, even in the Capitol Building where he serves as a senator. Lets lead off with that. Its an important topic. How is your thinking on these issues continued to evolve over the years. How did it shape the way you approached leading your caucus, putting together the justice act this summer which is the republican alternative to Police Reform. Its important for everybody to know that carolinians must stick together even if youre from North Carolina. Theres no doubt that my relationship with Law Enforcement over time has been like a roller coaster ride, positive and negative. Stopped 18 times since the year 1999. Its given me a fresh and clear perspective that we still have work to do. However, my positive experiences with Law Enforcement, my home was broken into many years ago, or a major car accident, they were there, caring, on the spot. I think one of the things we hear seldom is africanamericans speaking about the importance of bridging the blue line. Its this notion that theres a binary choice, Law Enforcement on one side, communities of color on the other side. That simply does not exist. I say thats a false binary choice. Its not real. My personal experience is informed and educated me on the importance of Police Reform and frankly, my positive experience has helped me understand without any question that the vast majority of Law Enforcement officers see their jobs as a mission to do good, go home, and take care of their families. Trey gowdy and i, we did a tour throughout South Carolina bringing black leaders and majority officers together to have a conversation. We learned a lot in those sessions. One of the things we learned was, theres no such thing as a normal traffic stop. And for officers, they learn very quickly that the disproportionate share of africanamerican men have negative experiences and many of them unnecessarily so. So it was really important and helpful. If we spent more time not demonizing the other side, we would spend a lot more time finding solutions together. Thats what i hope were able to do through the Police Reform legislation i have promoted. Thanks, yes. I think it is an Important Role that youve played here and sort of bridging this binary. Its something when you look at the polling data, i wrote about this summer in the national review. Black americans have a nuanced view here. Most dont want to defund the police. A fairly large percentage want to increase policing in their neighborhoods. But they want the police to behave a little differently and to understand the situations they face. And thats something that was a part of your justice act, its a part that has been separately enacted, im glad to say, since the that youve particularly wanted to focus on was the unique situation and its not just in policing. But that black men and young men and boys in particular face, something that touches me. Because im obviously a white man. My wife is a black woman. Our son is going to be facing some of these same sorts of issues. And so youve proposed creating and now its been created a commission on the social status of black men and boys. And i for one believe its quite possible to be very committed to general color blindness as a legal principal, but attuned to the impacts our criminal Justice System impacts. Policing affects africanamerican men and koreanamerican women quite differently. What are your aspirations for the commission of on the social status of black men and boys . I think you said something very important, we want our legal system to be color blind. The goal for us is to have a system that does not look first at the color of our skin before they decide what level of justice we get. In the past, weve not seen that to be the case all the time. Focusing on black boys and black men is a really important part of improving the outcome of this nation. It is a way for us to focus our attention on some of the vulnerable links in the chain as it relates to economic mobility, Educational Achievement, and interactions with Law Enforcement. I said this earlier and ill say it again. In my opinion, the fastest way for us to deal with Police Reform has nothing to do with the legal system. It has everything to do with the underpinnings of a healthy economy, the underpinnings of excellent education and then produci producing excellent outcomes from a good educational system. We spent more time on the precursors to Police Reform, we would have to spend less time on Police Reform itself. Theres an economic important that is important. I think well uncover some of the important statistics that will lead us in a direction that has nothing to do with the legal system, everything to do with economic mobility and Educational Achievement and i want to give certainly high props to my colleague marco rubio who literally came up with the idea of the coalition focusing on black boys and black men. I simply included his legislation in my Justice Reform package. And it was because of his personal experience that led him to this important focus and i certainly endorse that concept as well. Excellent. Im glad to see that at least something got through congress on it. As i mention, the Manhattan Institute has newly launched an initiative on policing and public safety. But this is hardly our first move into this space. The policies that helped push the homicide rates here in new york down from more than 2200 a year to only 289 in 2018. Which is a remarkable number of lives saved and disproportionately black and hispanic men. Since then, though, we have seen some backsliding. This year weve seen a 50 increase in the murder in new york, a doubling in shootings. Its one reason we launched our initiative and some of this years increase may be attributable to the covid lockdowns. But weve seen over the last several years substantial spikes in other large cities like chicago. Theres obviously differences in how places deal with this. It makes it complex when you tackle these issues from washington. How do these recent urban crime spikes inform the way youve begun approaching policing reform in congress. One of the things, as you measure the spike in Violent Crimes and the launch of the justice act as well as this conversation, i believe that there are statistics that reinforce this fact, the more we demonize Law Enforcement, the more we discourage them from patrolling certain areas, the more likely you are to see spikes in crime and frankly we see that clearly on the streets of new york. Theres no question that the correlation between Demonizing Police officers, taking folks off the streets, Uniformed Police officers off the streets, nonuniformed officers, undercover officers off the streets, its having an impact on crime and were seeing that throughout the country. The major cities around the country have seen an increase in crime as we talk about defunding the police, criminalizing their behavior. This is a section 1983 of the law and section 242 that makes it easier for us to lock up officers for doing parts of their job and frankly they those officers being civilly liable for what happens while on duty, those are very strong disensentives for Police Officers to do what they love doing, which is taking care of our communities and those spikes in crimes will continue as long as were having conversations around Defunding Police and around making qualified immunity, making officers personally liable. When you have to make a decision between your family and doing your job, if you hesitate for a split second, thats a problem. And we can ill eliminate that problem by making sure that we maintain the same level. Thats not to say that officers should not be held responsible for their actions. They absolutely should be held responsible. But the question is, at what level, a threshold. And the current threshold is one that i support that we should keep that is not the position that the friends on the other side of the aisle have taken. They wanted to enforce the demonization of officers as a part of this policy apparatus that i refuse to includes those issues in the legislative vehicle that ive chosen to push forward. Theres definitely some partisan divide that has prevented action on this issue and you talked about some of that with qualified immunity and other issues. As i would characterize it, another difference as i see it, reading your justice act and the democrat alternative, i would say your approach is somewhat less heavyhanded, a little less directive of what state and local governments are doing than the justice in policing act, the democrat alternative. To me, that makes some sense, and as we mentioned the difference between big cities, small cities, suburbs, rural areas, et cetera. Also you seem to be focused in your legislation a lot on gathering more data, trying to inform future decisionmaking not having all of the answers that we may want today. What do you see as the principle advantages of your approach . Well, one thing i want to take a couple notes on two different questions that you were asking there. Number one, i do not believe that we should ever nationalize police, period. The democrats have taken a very different position in some of the legislation. Whenever you say that we must ban the choke hold, in my opinion, the federal government does not have the ability to do that on the local levels. One of the reasons why their legislation speaks to banning the choke hold is because they cant. Our legislation is similar. We provide incentives for it and thats an important distinction and one that we should maintain. National politicalization of police is a terrible ideas for the community in which they serve. The last thing i want is a federal the federal government in washington, d. C. , helping the North CharlestonPolice Department figure out what to do and what tactics to use and not use. I would say the best way for us to understand and appreciate the nuances through the 18,000 Police Jurisdictions is to have data, data, data. The clearer the data, the clearer the direction, the more you should resource those solutions. The other really important part of that important delineation between our legislation and the other sides legislation is that we believe that we should support local Law Enforcement by tying more money, not less money, to their efforts. Its the city of minneapolis that has the power with a liberal mayor, a liberal city council, they have the power to do their own Police Reform. Cleveland, los angeles, dallas, charlotte, charleston, kenosha. Every local jurisdiction has the ability to ban the choke hold, to have a duty to intervene. Training on deescalation, with some of these jurisdictions may be more resources to enact better policies. They may need with 18,000 departments, they may need the best practices that they could use to employ, to make it better for the citizens that within their jurisdiction. That national policy, that national standard, best practices, can be published without having a national policy. Those are the things that we work under my legislation. But we do not believe one size fits all in 18,000 Police Jurisdictions. Therefore, leaving the decisions, the unique and specific decisions to the jurisdiction is really important if we are to improve the outcomes. And frankly, one of the things that is missing in the conversation is things are better today, statistically speaking, looking at the data, than they were even five years ago. And thats a blessing for those folks who feel a little more nervous than they should when being stopped by the police. So we talked about some of the differences in approach. But there is a lot of overlap between your bill and the democrat alternative. Each bill would create a federal antilynching law. Each has policy priorities again, the orientation is different. But policy priorities related to recent Controversial Police actions, the police use of force standards in your bill called the george floyd and walter scott act. Noknock warrants, the Breonna Taylor act. Each bill would tie federal grant money to the purchase and use of police body cameras. Given theres so much overlap, and we just had an election and theres still a couple pending in your body, but given that overlap in focus, why from your perspective has there been no ability for the parties to compromise in congress in light of the clear public support for at least some reforms . I wish the answer wasnt so simple. The answer is purely political. Folks have been willing to use the issue of Police Brutality as a way of as a wedge issue on the campaign trail. Something that as this election ends, finally, will have a chance to go back to the drawing board and get something done. Some of my friends interestingly enough, just to be blunt, the Congressional Black Caucus and other democrats in the house have been talking with me for the last few months, since the defeat back in june, july, of the justice act, they have remained engaged in conversation. My friends in the senate have apologized to me for what they felt was a politically motivated vote required by their construct. Thats a tough pill to swallow for me as a person who understands the very vulnerable nature of too many citizens and too many of these communities and our ability to respond swiftly was iced, frozen, paralyzed because of the president ial politics and the importance of having that issue on the table and not giving President Trump another victory within communities of color on top of hbcus, on top of opportunity zones, on top of all the issues we fought for. I gave the other side 20 amendments, to change every facet of the bill they disagreed with. They would have 20 amendments to change anything they want. Why is that important . I believe you know this better than i do, when 81 of africanamericans say they want more money and more patrols, that means that the two sides arent listening to the very Vulnerable People that they serve. If we know that 4 out of 5 africanamericans want more police presence, why are we talking about defunding the police . If you could have 20 amendments to change the bill, why are you holding the legislation up . And then the folks went to the floor of the senate, my friends on the other side and said that they were frustrated that we didnt even have a chance to debate the Justice Reform act. Well, the reason why we didnt have the chance to debate is because they voted it down. It was remarkable to see that on the floor of the senate just a few months after they said no to the justice act. Discouraging, but i guess politics is politics. Its good to hear that youre keeping those lines of communication open and talking to folks and hopefully, as the political season ends, well be able to move forward on some of this. Ive asked a lot of questions. Is there anything i didnt ask that i should or anything else you would like to share with your audience. One thing i think is important, i want to reinforce that one point, and that is this, true Police Reform is not the answer to all things that are happening in the Minority Community as it relates to police interaction. Improving education, critical, improving economic mobility, essential. If we looked at those two pillars, economic mobility and educational outcome as part and parcel to the conversation about social justice and Police Reform, we would have a clearer picture with more progress, fewer deaths, fewer violations, and certainly more collaboration if we focus first on economic mobility and educational outcome. That is more important than any other issue in my opinion. I was talking to some famous africanamerican actors and they all said the same thing, Economic Empowerment is more important than Police Reform, senator. I was like, wow. I said, will you say that publicly . They said, maybe after the election because they got lit up on cnn for making statements contrary to the current dialogue political dialogue on the left. And ive spoken to nba players, nfl players, actors, all in the Africanamerican Community and the one thing that they