Rick Scott GOP plan promises to outlaw race disclosures in any government form, including the 2030 census
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
- A policy memo on the future of the GOP proposes a ban on the government collecting data on race.
- Americans would not have to "disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government form."
- The proposal would also remove collection of data on race from the census.
In an 11-point plan outlining the future agenda of the Republican Party, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida proposes banning all government collection of racial data.
The proposal would also remove all data on race from the US Census Bureau's next population count in 2030, a campaign representative for Scott told Insider.
Although Scott is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — a fundraising organization tasked with helping elect GOP candidates to the Senate and reelecting incumbents — the memo is not an official NRSC document, according to Politico.
It's a notable move for Scott given that GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided not to release a GOP policy agenda going into the 2022 midterms.
The second point of the proposal, titled "color blind equality," says the GOP will "eliminate racial politics in America" and "stop dividing people by race, skin color, ethnicity, or country of origin, which is an immoral and corrosive habit of the woke crowd."
Beyond the outlawing of government racial statistics — nicknamed "ban the box," referring to checking off a box for race or ethnicity on a document — the Scott memo includes a subsection on diversity training in the military.
"Our military will engage in ZERO diversity training, teachings on critical race theory, or any woke ideological indoctrination that divides our troops," the bullet point reads. "Our fighting force must be completely united and completely colorblind."
The Scott memo was paid for by the senator's campaign, not with NRSC resources, according to the document.