Thirty seconds into his Wednesday speech on the U.S. Senate floor, Tim Scott paused, distraught. Mr. Scott was introducing the Republican police-reform bill, the Justice Act, drafted by a team he led in response to the national outcry after the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd. It was also the fifth anniversary of the murder of nine black worshipers in a church in Charleston, S.C., Mr. Scott’s hometown. Mr. Scott, 54, is the first black Republican senator since 1979—and the first elected from the South since 1875.

Source: Wall Street Journal June 19, 2020 22:18 UTC