FOXNews.com: DEMINT'S SUCCESSOR:South Carolina Gov. HaleyTo Name Rep. Tim Scott

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DEMINT'S SUCCESSOR:South Carolina Gov. HaleyTo Name Rep. Tim Scott Dec 17th 2012, 15:24 Columbia, S.C. –  South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to name Rep. Tim Scott as the replacement for outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint, Fox News has learned.  Haley is slated to announce her decision at noon on Monday at the Statehouse. Scott was elected to Congress in the 2010 Republican wave. Haley's selection would make him the first black U.S. senator from South Carolina.  State law gives the Republican governor sole authority to pick DeMint's successor. DeMint, considered an ideological godfather of the tea party movement, announced less than two weeks ago that he would resign Jan. 1 to take the helm of the Heritage Foundation, a national conservative think tank. Haley's appointee will fill the seat until 2014, when voters will choose who will fill the remaining two years of DeMint's term. Finalists for the position were thought to include not only Scott, but former first lady Jenny Sanford, U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, former Attorney General Henry McMaster and state health agency director Catherine Templeton. Scott would become the sixth black senator in U.S. history, with the last being Barack Obama and his brief successor Roland Burris. Scott also becomes the first black Republican senator since Ed Brooke, who served two terms representing Massachusetts in the 1960s and 1970s.  Haley said last week that while she's looking for a conservative fighter to replace DeMint, no one would be as conservative as him. "There is no question that I'm looking for a conservative person to fill those shoes, but we are never going to find someone as conservative and staunch as Jim DeMint," Haley told reporters. "What I do think we'll find is someone who very much understands the state of South Carolina." She said her decision process involved looking at candidates' philosophical beliefs and determining how they would vote on upcoming decisions. She also wants to make sure they want to seek the office past her two-year appointment. Haley ruled out sending herself to Washington or running for the seat herself in 2014. "With the fiscal cliff, with the debt issue, with everything we're facing in state government, how are those people going to respond and how are they going to agree with what Jim DeMint would've done?" Haley asked. "And are they going to fight? We need some more fighters in Washington right now." Scott was the state's first black Republican since Reconstruction. He was chairman of Charleston County Council and served a single term in the state House before being elected to Congress in 2010. Both he and former solicitor Gowdy were re-elected last month to their second terms in Congress. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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