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12 November 2010
Election Day victories for two Black Republicans raise a rare question in the
House of Representatives in the 112th Congress: How will two African American
members of the Grand Old Party interact with the Congressional Black Caucus?
Fourteen Black Republicans ran for Congress in the Nov. 2 mid-term elections
but, after all the votes were counted, only Tim Scott, a South Carolina businessman,
and Allen West, a Florida-based Army veteran of the Iraq War, will take seats.
They are the first African-American Republicans to be elected to Congress since
1995.
So far, West has said he wants to be part of the CBC, while Scott is still undecided
and is leaning toward not participating.
“It’s really heartening to see this type of diversity demonstrated in African-American
representation,” NAACP Washington Bureau Chief Hilary Shelton said. “[Republican
Party Chairman] Michael Steele deserves credit for seeing more African-Americans
seeking office under the Republican banner.”
He added, “They could be a real asset to the strategy of passing legislation
in the House and in advancing the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] agenda...
It’s very difficult to get things through without the cooperation of Democrats
and Republicans.”
Not everyone is as sure about the Republican freshmen’s value to the CBC, raising
questions about whether Scott and West will choose to join—or even be welcomed—into
the caucus, which was created in 1969 as a Capitol Hill advocate for the nation’s
African Americans.
While membership is open to all African-American lawmakers, its members have
been overwhelmingly Democrats, with only one Republican, Gary Franks of Connecticut,
ever becoming a CBC member. Though invited, J.C. Watts, a Black Republican who
represented Oklahoma from 1995 to 2003, declined membership. Sen. Edward Brooke,
a Massachusetts Republican who served in the Senate from 1967 through 1979,
was not publicly invited and refused to join a CBC boycott of President Richard
Nixon’s State of the Union address in 1971 although he criticized the Nixon
administration’s approach to the Black community and civil rights.
“The name of the group is not the Congressional Black Democratic Caucus, it’s
the Black Caucus. [And] if they go back to their founding principles then these
two men should be welcomed with open arms,” said Black Republican political
strategist Raynard Jackson. But, he predicted, even if they were admitted, “this
group will make a hostile environment for another Black [Republican] based on
them not being compatible in their philosophical leaning.”
Echoing statements by CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee, D-Calif., in an Oct. 22 article
in The Economist, Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards said, “If they’re aligned
with the interests of working people, particularly African-Americans, who struggle
and they want to work with us to advance those interests,” Scott and West would
be welcomed into the caucus. But, she added, “What I know of them and their
agendas, it is difficult for me to see how that would work [though] it might
make for some interesting discussions.”
Backed by the national Tea Party and elected to office by mostly White voters,
Scott and West have decidedly conservative agendas, including limited government,
lowered taxes, and cuts in government spending. Jackson said that, even among
GOP ranks, the men are considered to be far, far right of center, making them
almost incompatible with the mostly liberal members of the CBC.
“These boys are crazy; they’re Tea Party people,” Jackson said. “I’ve had White
people calling me up saying these guys are extremely conservative and so far
out of the mainstream.
Can you see them talking with Maxine Waters? I’d like to be a fly on the wall.”
But, he added, “If I were them, I’d join just to push the issue.”
West, in a Politico interview, indicated his interest in joining the CBC. “That
has been a monolithic voice in the body politic for far too long. There is a
growing conservative Black voice in this country,” that needs to be heard, West
told the publication.
Scott, on the other hand, told Politico he is less willing to join, pointing
to his experience in the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus and the dissonance
between him and Black Democrats.
Jackson suggested that the pair also have plenty of dissonance with more moderate
Black Republicans.
Moderate Black Republicans are “more concerned with pleasing White people” and
less committed to a “Black agenda,” Jackson said. That makes them a detriment
to the GOP, rather than an asset, he added.
Though White Republicans are excited by these two additions to the House, saying
their victories signal a potential increase in the number of Black conservatives,
the new additions will not incite more Blacks to join the party “if they’re
saying the same thing White conservatives are saying,” Jackson said. “It’s not
the messenger; it’s the message. You can’t send a Black to say the same things
Pat Buchanan says.”
“In a lot of ways,” Jackson added, “it would be better not to have these guys
in these positions because it gives the White folks in the party a way out”
of having to create real change, “especially if they [Scott and West] have no
real power.”
