It was a tumultuous trip from the beginning.
Leaving Washington for Congress’ summer recess, Rep. David Scott’s flight to Atlanta was delayed by several hours because of stormy weather. Once in the air, the flight had to skirt so much turbulence that it ran low on fuel and had to be diverted to Knoxville. By the time Scott arrived at his Atlanta-area home, it was well after midnight.
After a few hours of sleep, Scott was up and on the road, driving to a Douglasville town hall meeting where organizers wanted him to speak about a controversial road project.
It was there that his heated verbal confrontation with health care-revamp protesters made national news, resulting in an avalanche of hate mail and a swastika on his district office sign.
Responding to a doctor’s question of nearly four minutes asking Scott why he had voted for a health care plan that the doctor said “is shown not to work in Massachusetts,” the irritated congressman accused protesters of coming from outside his district to take over a meeting that was meant to discuss the road project. Scott says that showed a lack of respect for his constituents, although the doctor says he is a resident of the congressman’s district.
The outburst went viral when video appeared on YouTube, other Internet sites and television.
Scott had suddenly been cast into the spotlight as a face of the nationwide emotion over the issue of health care change.
“It has been one whirlwind ever since we left” Washington, Scott said earlier this week as he prepared for another town hall meeting — one actually about health care — that was to be held Saturday.
Consensus often goal
Scott, 63, finding himself embroiled in the heated national rhetoric over health care is somewhat surprising.
He hasn’t been involved in drafting the health care legislation in the House. At least until now, he hasn’t even been very outspoken on the issue. About the only involvement he’s had was as part of the House Democrats’ Blue Dog Coalition that helped stall the current proposal until after Congress’ August break.
“I’ve only been part of the process of trying to get [President Barack] Obama to slow the damn thing down,” Scott said.
A four-term Democratic congressman whose district includes parts of Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton and Henry counties, Scott is generally considered level-headed, serious and calm, not someone quick to shout down questioners as he did in Douglasville. He considers himself a consensus-builder, and colleagues say he’s often the one who can find middle ground in political disagreements.
“I’ve seen him sort of come in and diffuse situations, and then shortly thereafter we’re able to work things out,” said U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from DeKalb County.
The son of a minister, Scott grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y., where he said some of his best friends were Jewish — adding extra significance to the Nazi symbol painted on the sign on his district office in Smyrna.
A graduate of Florida A&M University who also has an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of business, Scott owns an Atlanta advertising business with his wife, Alfredia Aaron, sister of baseball legend Hank Aaron.
In Washington, Scott generally doesn’t get much attention. He sits on three House committees that don’t typically make a lot of waves: Agriculture, Financial Services and Foreign Affairs.
But Scott does vote on almost every bill that comes across the House floor, almost always siding with his fellow Democrats. He has only missed three votes this year — a better record than the vast majority of House members and better than any member of Georgia’s delegation except Savannah Democratic Rep. John Barrow.
“He takes very seriously his public trust and responsibility,” said U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, a Democrat from Albany who also served in the Georgia Legislature with Scott.
Though typically reserved, Scott can be confrontational when he wants to be — as the widely circulated video from the Douglasville town hall meeting showed.
“I think if you follow him on the House floor, he gets as passionate as anybody else about certain issues he feels strongly about,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican who also served with Scott in the Georgia Legislature.
Added Bishop: “He’s usually very pensive, very thoughtful and low-key. But he can rise to the occasion of drama.”
No regret
Asked whether he would have handled his verbal confrontation in Douglasville differently, Scott is quick to answer.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
The people of Douglasville, he said, organized the town meeting there specifically to discuss the controversial issue of a road, Ga. 92, an issue of high importance to them.
But as in town hall meetings elsewhere, Scott said, Republican-led health care reform opponents from outside the region “hijacked” the meeting — even though the doctor he shouted down later said he isn’t a Republican and simply wanted to ask a question.
“When you look across the country, we Democrats need to fight back, stand strong and need not be intimidated by unruly mobs at town hall meetings,” Scott said.
Like politics, Scott said race has been inappropriately injected into the health care debate.
As evidence, he points to the swastika on his district office sign and the hate mail he’s received since his Douglasville dust-up.
His mail has also included numerous pieces using racial slurs.
“It has something to do with race,” Scott said.
The preacher’s son chalks that up to the will of God.
“The Lord works in strange and mysterious ways,” Scott said. “I think the good Lord has opened up this sore and let the pus run out so we can get to the seriousness of this bill.”
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