WASHINGTON — Freshman Rep. Tim Scott was chosen by South Carolina’s governor Monday to replace Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who will leave Congress in January to lead a small-government policy group.

Scott, 47, the first black Republican senator from theSouth since the 1890s, was re-elected last month to his Charleston-area House seat with 62 percent of the vote. He would be the first black Republican toserve in the Senate in 34 years. Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, who served from 1967 to 1979, is the only popularly elected black Republican ever to serve in the Senate.

“It speaks to the evolution of South Carolina and our nation,” Scott said of his appointment.

Gov. Nikki Haley said Scott will fill DeMint’s Senate seat until a special election is held in 2014 to serve the last two years of the six-year term. De-Mint announced Dec. 6 that he will leave the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation, a Republican-leaning group in Washington.

Scott, 47, will be sworn in Jan. 3.

Haley said Scott “earned” the seat through his record in public service.

“Many people have asked what went into this decision process, and it was pretty simple: He understands the strength that we need to have in our business community as we continue to focus on jobs,” the governor said at a news conference Monday in Columbia, S.C. Haley said she had “no doubt” that Scott will “fly through 2014.”

Scott said he will run to keep the seat in 2014. He said he is excited about “having anopportunity to get around the state” to introduce himself to his constituents.

“Our nation finds itself in a situation where we need some backbone. We need to make very difficult decisions,” Scott said. “I learned early in my 20s that if you have a problem with spending, there’s not enough revenue to make up for it.”

Scott is “a great choice” who is a “fighter for limited government and pro-growth policies in Washington,” Chris Chocola, president of the antitax group Club for Growth, said in a statement. The group, which backed Scott in a 2010 Republican primary over the son of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, has given Scott a 92 percent lifetime rating.

Elected in 2010 as part of the Tea Party wave that swept Republicans to power in the House, he serves as a liaison to leadership, representing the views of Republican freshmen. He also is a member of the Rules Committee, which sets the terms for House floor debate.

Scott has been willing to break with leadership to press for deeper spending cuts and smaller government. In August 2011, he opposed a deal House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, brokered raising the federal debt ceiling. At the time, Scott said the measure “did not take enough steps towards ensuring a stable economic future.”

Scott “knows the value of a dollar, Haley said.

Scott’s selection culminates a fast rise through South Carolina politics. Just four years ago, he was chairman of the Charleston County Council. The 2008 election made him the first black Republican in the South Carolina Legislature in more than a century, and in 2010, he won his seat in the U.S. House from his conservative coastal district with 65 percent of the vote.

Information for this article was contributed by Seanna Adcox and Donna Cassata of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 12/18/2012