Tim Scott says police reform talks collapsed with Dems over funding GOP Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) said he believes months-long negotiations with Democratic lawmakers on a potential police reform bill collapsed because their proposals called reducing funding to law enforcement. In clips from an interview with CBS News’s Margaret Brennan released Saturday, Scott, who had been conducting talks with Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and Karen Bass (Calif.) for more than a year, said that many of their proposals would have required him to “agree to limited or reduced funding for the police.” "We said simply this: 'I'm not going to participate in reducing funding for the police after we saw a major city after major city defund the police,’” Scott said.