Richard Lynn "Rick" Scott (1 December 1952-) was a US Senator from Florida (R) from 3 January 2019 (succeeding Bill Nelson), previously serving as Governor of Florida from 4 January 2011 to 4 January 2019 (succeeding Charlie Crist and preceding Ron DeSantis).
Biography[]
Richard Lynn Scott was born in Bloomington, Illinois on 1 December 1952, and he was raised in North Kansas City, Missouri. He served in the US Navy from 1971 to 1974, and he studied at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Southern Methodist University before becoming a Texas lawyer in 1978. He became a co-founder of the Columbia Hospital Corporation in 1988, but he resigned in 1997 due to a fradulent Medicare billing scandal that cost the company $600,000,000. Scott then founded Richard L. Scott Investments in Naples, Florida, investing in healthcare, manufacturing, and technology companies. He became a well-known venture capitalist, and he became a member of the Republican Party, urging the Democratic Party to keep the free market in mind while proposing healthcare legislation. In 2010, Scott ran for Governor of Florida as the Republican nominee, and he won with 48.87% of the vote, a narrow lead of 1.15% votes over Democratic Party challenger Alex Sink. During his governorship, he supported the testing of welfare recipients for drug use, and he aimed to reduce tuition fees for engineering and science majors. Scott was re-elected in 2014, and he endorsed Donald Trump for President of the United States in 2016. In 2018, he ran against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson during the US Senate elections, and he narrowly beat him.