THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310298
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Decision '96
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 82 lines
Robert C. Scott, Democratic candidate for the 3rd District seat in Congress, says his focus as he bids for a third term hasn't changed: expanding educational opportunities, preventing crime and protecting local shipbuilding and military interests.
The Newport News native, who goes by ``Bobby,'' hopes to continue work on his congressional committees - which have jurisdiction over courts and crime and education and labor. It's in these areas he's developed a body of knowledge and built seniority.
On the Judiciary Committee, Scott stands to become a panel chairman, possibly on the Crime subcommittee, where he is now a ranking member, if the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives.
Scott's background as a lawyer and involvement in the plight of minorities mesh well with these issues, he said.
Scott said he's not interested in legislating with ``slogans,'' preferring to investigate root causes of the nation's ills and map out a plan to reverse trends in such areas as the juvenile crime rate and the high drop-out rate at schools.
To him, the most illogical slogan is ``If you do the adult crime, you should do the adult time.'' By applying the plan to all juvenile offenders, he said, the juveniles end up spending less time incarcerated than if they were sent to a facility designed for them. The kids also get no rehabilitation and education at an age when it could have an impact, he said.
Long-term investment in the nation's youth would go farther to prevent crime and improve the country's economic outlook, in his view.
``It's all related,'' Scott said.
The problem with politics today, he said, is that elected officials are looking for the short-term fix to the detriment of the country as a whole.
``Politicians rely on public opinion polls,'' he said. The solutions may involve more money up front and take longer than a congressional term, he said, ``and that doesn't rate well in the polls.''
Next year, Scott hopes to tackle reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act.
``I was one of the few who can take credit for stopping it last year because of a lot of silly counter-productive rhetoric that was included in the bill,'' he said. ``Hopefully we can deliberate next year and produce a bill that will have the effect of reducing juvenile crime. If we do it early in the two-year (congressional) term, people will be more inclined to support substantive legislation and less concerned with the politics of getting re-elected.''
He also plans to help make higher education more accessible and improve elementary education, ``particularly for at-risk and disabled children,'' he said.
Scott, who has not run an aggressive campaign, does not expect trouble at the polls. His district, drawn in 1991 as a majority black district and the most Democratic in the state, supported Democratic presidential candidates Bill Clinton in 1992 and Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Popular in the 3rd District, Scott won with 79 percent of the vote in his past two congressional elections. He's raised about half the money this election cycle as he did in the last election.
Before Congress, Scott served in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, worked as an attorney and served in the Army National Guard and Army Reserves. Scott went to Harvard, where he was a classmate of Vice President Al Gore, and earned his law degree from Boston College Law School.
But Scott, the first black member of Congress to be elected from Virginia since Reconstruction, said his mostly liberal politics are the result of historic inequities in the South.
The federal government has the power and the obligation to improve life for its poorest, disadvantaged and mistreated members, he said.
As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Scott voted against the Democrats' crime bill in 1994 because the group was unable to convince party leaders to add a provision requiring the death penalty be applied equally by race.
And while many Democrats are retiring this year, Scott said, ``I'm still enthusiastic about this job.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Rep. Robert C. Scott (D)
KEYWORDS: PROFILE CANDIDATE U.S. CONGRESSIONAL RACE
ELECTION ISSUE 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT JOB INTERVIEW by CNB