U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat and the first Black chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, has died. He was 80.
Scott, who was seeking his 13th term in Congress despite challenges from within his party, was once a leading voice for Democrats on issues related to farm aid policy and food aid for consumers and a prominent Black member of the party’s moderate Blue Dog caucus.
But he faced criticism and concerns in recent years because of declining health, enduring a primary challenge in 2024 and facing another one at the time of his death.
Democrats on Capitol Hill praised the longtime lawmaker.
“The news of Congressman Scott’s passing is deeply sad,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Wednesday.
“David Scott was a trailblazer who served the district that he represented admirably, rose up from humble beginnings to become the first African American ever to chair the House Ag Committee,” Jeffries said. “He cared about the people that he represented. He was fiercely committed to getting things done for the people of the great state of Georgia, and he’ll be deeply missed.”
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👉 JOIN GISTSMATE WHATSAPP CHANNELNews of Scott’s death came during the Congressional Black Caucus’ weekly luncheon on Capitol Hill. The Black Caucus’ chair, Rep. Yvette Clarke, told lawmakers at the outset of the meeting, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Many lawmakers in the room, some of whom had served with Scott for decades, were shocked and saddened by the news.
Scott’s death slightly widens Republicans’ narrow House majority going into the thick of this midterm election year The GOP began the current Congress with a 220-215 advantage, but the margin has fluctuated with resignations and deaths. Scott is the fourth House Democrat to die in office during this Congress. .
He was not especially active on the campaign trail in 2026 and had become a noted example of Democrats’ aging leadership targeted by younger generations of the left. But Scott had been dismissive of pressure to retire.
“Thank God I’m in good health, moving and doing the people’s work,” the congressman said in 2024.
His wife and campaign adviser Alfredia Scott was even more direct. “When the congressman decides to leave, he won’t be pushed out,” she said at the time. “He will bow out.”
David Albert Scott was born in rural Aynor, South Carolina, on June 27, 1945, in the era of Jim Crow segregation. He spent part of his childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania, along with stints New York and Florida. Scott graduated from Florida A&M University, one of the nation’s largest historically Black college campuses — and in office he was an outspoken advocate for federal support of HBCUs. Scott also earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1969.
He settled in Atlanta after graduate school, opened his own advertising business and got his first start in politics as a staffer on Andrew Young’s 1972 congressional campaign. Young would go on to be Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador under President Jimmy Carter, another Georgian.
Scott was elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1983, part of the first generation of Black lawmakers in that body. He spent two decades in the state House and Senate before being elected to Congress in 2002.
Among his notable achievements on Capitol Hill, Scott secured $80 million for historically Black land-grant schools as part of the 2018 Farm Bill. The money was steered to agriculture-related scholarships at 19 campuses.
He helped author various housing and mortgage aid measures, and he pushed for better health care and other benefits for veterans and their families.
On foreign policy, Scott was an outspoken advocate for NATO and post-World War II American alliances.
Scott is survived by Alfreida Scott, who is the sister of baseball Hall of Fame member Henry Aaron, the couple’s adult children and grandchildren.
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