Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, South Carolinians! I’m wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2025. Let's remember, we can make a difference by being the difference in this new year!

Celebrating Historic Milestones

This Congress, I am humbled and honored to become America’s longest serving Black senator and serve as the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. These milestones reinforce the staggering progress we’ve made and experience in America. I’m so blessed to be a South Carolinian and proud American, where people consistently judge, not on the color of one’s skin, but by the content of your character. 

Read more about my milestones here!

Demanding Answers from the Treasury

I joined House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-Ark.) in a letter demanding answers from the U.S. Department of Treasury following the China state-sponsored cybersecurity breach. The letter demands a detailed briefing and expresses concerns with the Department’s protocols for safeguarding sensitive federal government information. This breach of federal government information is extremely concerning, and I look forward to receiving answers from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. 

Read to learn more about the letter here.

On June 5, 1966, Army Capt. Hugh Reavis Nelson Jr. died in action while sacrificing his life to save his crewmen after his helicopter was shot down over South Vietnam. After a series of reviews seeking to have Nelson’s file re-opened, Nelson will be awarded today with the Medal of Honor by President Joe Biden. Nelson, a Citadel graduate, joins 3,519 previous recipients of America’s highest recognition for battlefield bravery. While Nelson died on the scene, his surviving crewmates were successfully rescued. Nelson’s leadership exemplifies true honor, duty, and respect. Read the full story here!

ABC News: Tim Scott becomes longest-serving Black senator in US history

By Beatrice Peterson

January 3, 2025

Sixty years after Black Americans gained the right to vote in the United States through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Sen. Tim Scott on Friday makes history, becoming the longest-serving African American in the 235-year history of the United States Senate. This historic moment will be shared alongside four other African-American senators, making this the largest group of Black senators to ever serve concurrently in the U.S. Capitol, a building constructed with the labor of enslaved Black people.

The previous longest-serving Black senator was the late Republican Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who held office from 1967 until 1979. Scott, the first elected Black senator from the South, is the first to serve in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In his first speech as a freshman senator, Scott said, "I believe in the greatness of America because I have experienced the goodness of our people in America. An ordinary guy like me can be blessed with an extraordinary opportunity like this.”

Read the full article here!

Sincerely,

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