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July 21, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) and Don Bacon (R-NE) applauded the passage of the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law (EQUAL) Act out of the House Judiciary Committee 36 to 5. The bipartisan legislation would eliminate the federal crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity and retroactively apply it to those already convicted or sentenced. “The failed war on drugs, which started 50 years ago, has devastated lives, families and communities across our country. For decades, the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine has been used to fuel a mass incarceration epidemic that has unjustly put millions behind bars for too long and cost taxpayers billions of dollars without benefiting public safety.
July 21, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement after the Department of Labor released a proposed rule implementing President Biden’s Executive Order 14026, which requires all federal contractors to pay a $15 minimum wage. “I applaud the Biden Administration for making good on its promise to increase the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour. By both raising the minimum wage and phasing out the tipped minimum wage for federal contractors, this rule will ensure that hundreds of thousands of hardworking Americans can provide for themselves and their families.
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July 21, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Within the first two weeks of re-entry, individuals released from correctional facilities are 129 times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than the general population. To help ensure that individuals can access the care they need, Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03) and Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) reintroduced the Supporting Positive Outcomes After Release Act. This legislation would require states to suspend, rather than terminate, an individual’s Medicaid coverage while they are incarcerated, ensuring access to addiction treatment, mental health services, and medications in the critical, immediate days and weeks after release.
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July 14, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement reporting that key provisions from the PRO Act are included in the Senate budget agreement. “The Senate needs to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO) Act in its entirety, but any step we can take to defend workers’ rights is meaningful. Based on past precedent, there is good reason to believe important PRO Act provisions can pass through the Budget reconciliation process, and I applaud their inclusion in the Senate Budget Committee’s agreement.
July 13, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement after the Education Department announced temporary changes to the federal student aid verification process for the 2021–22 award year. The temporary changes will provide relief to hundreds of thousands of students and thousands of colleges who may be facing challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Education Department’s decision to streamline the financial aid verification process is an important and sensible step to help students stay in school and complete their degrees.
July 2, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 850,000 jobs in June with the unemployment rate at 5.9 percent. “Today’s jobs report is further proof that the Biden-Harris economic agenda is delivering results for the American people. Since President Biden took office, the economy has created more than 3 million jobs and consumer confidence has soared to its highest rate in 21 years.
July 1, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03), one of the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Voting Rights Caucus, issued the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee: “Today the Supreme Court approved laws that have a racially discriminatory impact under flawed and tortured legal theories. This will greenlight all kinds of future laws that have discriminatory impact and further erode voting rights. That is why we must enact the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the right to vote.
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July 1, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Representatives Bobby Scott (VA-03), John Sarbanes (MD-03), and Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen (both D-MD) led a bicameral letter to Michael Regan, the Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and to Lieutenant General Scott A. Spellmon, the Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, urging them to rescind the harmful Navigable Waters Protection Rule implemented by the Trump Administration, and replace it with a rule that restores strong Clean Water Act protections to the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways and wetlands across the country.
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June 30, 2021
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement after the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General confirmed that the former Under Secretary of Education exceeded her authority and wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to provide a handout to executives and owners at Dream Center Education Holdings. “This independent watchdog report provides clear evidence that the Trump administration’s Education Department took unprecedented and improper steps to support a failing for-profit college chain and that its actions cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
June 30, 2021
Press Release
Washington, D.C. – Today, Representative Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, urged President Biden to extend the pause on federal student loan payments, which is currently set to expire at the end of September. In a letter to President Biden, the members stressed that the pause on student loan payments has been a lifeline for struggling borrowers during the health and economic crises and that borrowers need more time and support in order to navigate resuming repayments.
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In The News
June 13, 2021
In The News
As Congress gears up to battle over how much to spend on infrastructure, Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, D-Newport News, wants to be sure his Capitol Hill colleagues remember one part of the foundation that keeps an economy growing: Child care. “If we’re going to get all these jobs, people need the things that make it possible to work, and that’s child care,” he told staff at the Downtown Hampton Child Development Center. The pandemic hit child-care facilities hard, he said. Those that remained open faced big bills to arrange for social distancing and hygiene measures — and had to spend that money as parents, stuck at home, decided to keep their children home too. Many simply closed their doors, and face bills to prepare for reopening.
April 15, 2021
In The News
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott (D-3rd District) has formally asked for the Justice Department to investigate two recent high-profile cases in Hampton Roads involving Black men and police, the fatal police shooting of Donovon Lynch in Virginia Beach and the threatening traffic stop of Army 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario in Windsor. Scott said he has also spoken in person with Attorney General Merrick Garland about launching probes into the incidents, in addition to sending a formal request in writing. “We deserve transparency, accountability, and most of all, the truth about these incidents,” Scott said.
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March 19, 2021
In The News
Kevin Ring worked on Capitol Hill during the crafting of the 1994 Crime Bill, which imposed tougher prison sentences and bolstered the War on Drugs. As he remembers it, members of both parties were obsessed with appearing tough on crime. “You couldn’t go far enough,” said Ring, who’s now the president of sentencing reform organization Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “Three strikes? How about two strikes? How about one strike? We couldn’t be punitive enough to satisfy what we thought was public anger about crime and drugs.” Over 25 years after the 1994 Crime Bill and 35 years after the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the War on Drugs is considered by experts and government officials alike to be one of the biggest failures of American governance in the 20th century.
March 10, 2021
In The News
The House of Representatives isn’t dealing with just COVID-19 relief. Members also voted Tuesday night on a labor law introduced by a senior member of the Virginia delegation. Virginia is one of 27 states that has what some people call a “right to work” law, which union supporters sometimes call a freeloader law. That’s because it allows people who aren’t members of unions and don’t pay union dues to benefit from higher wages and working conditions negotiated on their behalf by unions. That’s why Congressman Bobby Scott of Newport News introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which creates what he calls a “fair-share fee” allowing unions and employers to assess fees supporting the cost of collective bargaining.
March 10, 2021
In The News
WASHINGTON (AP/WAVY) — The House has approved Democratic legislation sponsored by Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott (3rd District) that would invigorate workers’ unions following decades of court defeats and legislative setbacks. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which passed Tuesday on a 225-206 vote, would block so-called Right to Work laws across the country and generally make it easier to organize a union. It would also prohibit companies from hiring replacements for workers on strike. Scott, the bill’s lead sponsor, is also the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor.
January 28, 2021
In The News
On January 6th, then-President Donald Trump incited a deadly insurrection against Congress while we fulfilled our constitutional duty to count the electoral votes of the states. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the chair of the House Republican Conference, strongly condemned the president, appropriately stating that “[T]here has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.” In the days since this domestic terror attack on our democracy, troubling public reports of the timeline now reveal that several members of Congress, and perhaps even the vice president, were within moments of being captured and possibly murdered by the mob.
January 14, 2021
In The News
When the impeachment of Bill Clinton landed on his desk 22 years ago as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport News, called a political scientist at U.Va. with a question: what were the grounds, really, for impeachment? “He said, ‘You’re asking the wrong question,’” Scott recalled, pausing for a few moments before headed to the House of Representatives’ chamber to vote to impeach Donald J. Trump for the second time. “He said, ‘the question is, why is impeachment in the Constitution?,’ and the reason is it’s there is for when you can’t wait till the next election or the end of a term to remove someone,” Scott said.
January 7, 2021
In The News
WASHINGTON — Two more members of Congress from Hampton Roads are calling for the removal of President Donald Trump after Wednesday's insurrection in the Capitol by his supporters. 3rd District Representative Bobby Scott and 2nd District Representative Elaine Luria both say Trump needs to leave office immediately. "While there are only 13 days until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office, it is clear there are significant risks to our nation if President Trump remains in office," Scott said in a statement Thursday.
January 4, 2021
In The News
HAMPTON ROADS, Va. - Congressman Bobby Scott is calling for a criminal investigation into President Donald Trump after reports that Trump tried to ask election officials in Georgia to “find” votes for a victory. President Trump is heard on tape pleading with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, according to a copy obtained by the Associated Press. Trump tells Raffensperger at one point that he wants him to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump. Scott made the call for an investigation on Twitter and claims that "this behavior is a dangerous threat to democracy and warrants a criminal investigation."
December 16, 2020
In The News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than two dozen members of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday called on federal prison and health officials for details about how inmates will be vaccinated for COVID-19, questioning whether the most vulnerable prisoners will have priority access. In a letter to Federal Bureau of Prisons director Michael Carvajal and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Dr. Robert Redfield, 26 lawmakers, led by Democratic Representative Bobby Scott, expressed concerns about the prison system’s existing plan for vaccine distribution.
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