|
Clyburn offers his vision of economic development
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
He may be the third most powerful individual in the U.S. Congress, a position that requires him to be accompanied by the Secret Service whenever he leaves the Capitol, but there are moments when U.S. Congressman James E. Clyburn speaks when all his South Carolina yesterdays become omnipresent.
Speaking before a S.C. World Trade Center luncheon just hours after being honored by U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and others at a union hall in Charleston, the House majority whip appeared to bristle at the memory of a memo that crossed his desk in the S.C. Statehouse more than 30 years ago.
“I was working for then-Gov. John Carl West at the time,” Clyburn said. “And South Carolina had decided to pursue industry, to try and attract industry and jobs from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt.”
At first glance, it seemed like a noble plan that would help bring jobs to parts of the state that had been humbled by the collapse of textiles and the shrinking of the agricultural economy.
But as he read on, Clyburn said it was evident that one strategy being espoused was keeping prospects away from 10 specific counties that were largely rural and just happened to be the 10 counties in the state that had a majority black population.
“The only thing I could think was, ‘Just what is it that you really want to accomplish?’” Clyburn said.
Even today, he conceded, there are those who say that if you could take those 10 counties out of the South Carolina, the state would quickly rise to the top of the list of states by many parameters.
“Today, I represent seven of those counties and can tell you, if we really want to foster a meaningful economic development in the state, one that will raise the fortunes of everyone, then we have to get serious about improving the quality of life of those who live along the Interstate 95 corridor.”
Bible verses and newspapers
The eldest son of an activist fundamentalist minister and a civic-minded beautician, the man who earlier this year became the third highest ranking leader in the 110th Congress said he first began to understand activism as a child growing up in Sumter, S.C.
”My parents had a very enlightened way with rules,” he said. “They never said, ‘Read Jesus’ word’—a southern person’s word for the Bible—they said you had to recite a Bible verse, a different Bible verse, every morning.
“In much the same way, they required us to share a current event with one or the other of them by the end of every day. They never said, ‘Read a newspaper,’ but to fulfill that requirement, you had to. And I think that’s a very enlightened approach to making sure your child is a well-rounded individual.”
By age 12, Clyburn had been elected president of his NAACP youth chapter, but it was the school desegregation lawsuit, Briggs v. Elliot, which later became part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, that truly launched his involvement in the civil rights movement.
In 1960, Clyburn was the star witness in a civil disobedience case in Orangeburg defended by Matthew J. Perry, who went on to become South Carolina’s first African American U.S. District Court judge.
Clyburn himself was later jailed during the 1961 march on the S.C. State Capital in Columbia that resulted in the landmark breach of the peace case Edwards v. South Carolina.
But protesting wasn’t the only way he tried to get a message across or to inspire others. For many years, he taught history in the Charleston County School District, while his wife Emily, whom he married in June 1961, was a school librarian.
Clyburn ran for the S.C. House in 1970, losing by 500 votes, but gaining an admirer in Governor-elect West.
West offered him a place in the administration, making Clyburn the first African-American since Reconstruction to hold such a position in South Carolina.
Four years later, West appointed him state Human Affairs Commissioner. It was a position he would hold for almost 18 years, under four governors, two of them Democrats, two Republicans.
Elected state office would elude him again in 1978 and 1986, but in 1992, Clyburn finally achieved a lifelong dream of being elected to Congress—a position no black South Carolinian had held since 1897.
His assent to majority whip began in 1999, when he unanimously won election as chairman of the Congressional black caucus. In 2002, he won a three-way race to become vice chairman of the House Democratic caucus and, in 2006, was unanimously voted chairman.
Dreams of an intermodal facility
Now that he’s achieved the successes in his political career of which he’s always dreamed, Clyburn readily admits to his ambitions.
One of those is to try to make the communities along I-95 “just a little better off” than they were 45 or 50 years ago.
His vision for the corridor includes an intermodal transportation hub at the intersection of I-95 and Interstate 26 and one or more biofuel facilities that would put communities in his 6th Congressional District at the forefront of South Carolina’s efforts to recreate itself into an innovation economy.
Clyburn said as recently as last year he included $10.5 million in the federal budget for the development of an inland port by CaroLinks at the intersection of I-95 and I-26, but said the state “wouldn’t even look at it.”
“I believe CaroLinks, what they are proposing to do by creating an intermodal facility and distribution center in Orangeburg, is absolutely necessary for South Carolina. I believe what the S.C. World Trade Center is proposing in regard to the creation of a World Trade Park and Educational Research Center in Orangeburg is absolutely necessary. Savannah is eating our lunch, and it’s high time we did something about that,” he said.
“What we need to do is get away from the concept of Charleston Harbor being the ‘be all and end all,’ the global gateway, and to start setting up gates all across the state.”
Instead of seeing the beauty of Charleston as you enter the downtown area via Morrison Drive, you pass block after block of stacked containers, he said.
“What a beautiful site it would be if those containers were town homes and condos and the containers could be found inland, where people would just be happy to have a job,” Clyburn said. “We’ve got all kinds of places where there’s just nothing but birds and bees.”
The loss of earmarks
Among the most controversial subjects Clyburn weighs into of late is that of Congressional earmarks, the power granted under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which allows members to earmark appropriations of money from the U.S. Treasury to specific projects in their home districts.
According the U.S. Congress Web site, The House Appropriations Committee receives nearly 35,000 individual spending requests per year.
In January, as the new Democratic majority took power, it passed a rule requiring congressmen to attach their names to earmarks and certify they have no financial interest in the provisions. The U.S. Senate quickly followed suit.
Then President George W. Bush declared during his State of the Union address that he would remove the earmarking of federal spending.
At present, the federal government is operating under the auspices of a continuing resolution that doesn’t allow members to earmark projects.
But Clyburn said he believes the controversy over earmarks is a huge mistake. Earmarks don’t increase the budget, but rather are taken from funds already appropriated for Congress, and they allow members to direct money to projects that foster economic development in their home districts.
In the past, Clyburn has used earmarks to direct funding to Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research, the University of South Carolina’s hydrogen program and South Carolina State University’s transportation program.
“As a result of operating under a continuing resolution, absent earmarks, do you know what I can give Clemson this year? Zero. USC? Zero,” he said. “The country thinks it’s against earmarks because of the shenanigans of a few, but you know, if some malfeasance was happening at my church, I wouldn’t get rid of the church, I’d get rid of the person responsible.
“It’s time to stop the nonsense. Earmarks are what make it possible for constituents to say, ‘I’ve got a worthwhile project on I-95, can you help us?’”
Fill your tank with kudzu?
The House majority whip said he would like to see the federal government commit to a renewable energy program akin to the historic efforts that led to a man walking on the moon.
“It’s high time for America to commit itself to a new Apollo program,” he said. “I am convinced that we are in the quagmire in the Middle East because of oil. When we can extricate ourselves from that dependency, then we will have peace.”
There are three compelling reasons to turn to renewable sources of energy: national security, global warming and because “here in South Carolina, cotton is no longer king and tobacco is no longer our future.”
“I think the alternative-energy economy is the quickest way to a new day in the rural parts of our state,” Clyburn said. “And we don’t have to compete with Iowa by trying to produce ethanol. We can produce fuel from any number of cellulose-rich plants that grow here in South Carolina. Even Kudzu.
“Could you imagine what would happen in South Carolina if we could get a redeeming value from Kudzu?” he added. “That would be a day, let me tell you. And all of its byproducts would be homegrown and American-owned.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version