October 7, 2014 — U.S. Congressman James E. Clyburn, who represents the Sixth Congressional District in South Carolina, spoke to our Club this week. Clyburn, as Assistant Democratic Leader in Congress, is the third ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. Clyburn began serving in Congress in 1993, after winning more than 50% of the popular vote despite being part of a field of 5 candidates. Since then, he has held a number of important positions in national politics, including Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Chair of the Democratic Caucus, and House Majority Whip.
Clyburn came from humble beginnings in Sumter, South Carolina. He was the oldest son of a fundamentalist minister and a beautician. Clyburn recently published his memoir, which is titled “Blessed Experiences.” Clyburn noted that not all of his life experiences have been positive, but they have all been blessings. As an example, he mentioned that he met his wife, Emily, after becoming incarcerated in 1960 for “challenging the status quo” about civil rights issues. Emily happened to visit the jail, and she shared her hamburger with him. They were married during June 1961, and thereafter, they moved to Charleston where Clyburn said he developed deep roots and matured. Clyburn recently celebrated his 53rd wedding anniversary with Emily.
Clyburn lamented the fact that very little has been achieved lately in the current lame duck Congress, noting that “everything is being left on the table” right now. He expects more legislative activity after next month’s elections, including progress on immigration reform. He also mentioned his frustration with partisan politics, including Republican attempts to block or overturn the Affordable Care Act and Republican actions to block Medicaid expansion in our state. In both instances, said Clyburn, it is children and the elderly who primarily suffer. Clyburn also emphasized that too many members of Congress today are overly concerned with who gets credit for a piece of legislation. He said that a reporter recently criticized him for not authoring any legislation in the last several years. Clyburn said that while his name was not attached to any recent legislation, he was in fact responsible for introducing two important recent bills. One was the Rural Energy Savings Program, which provides funding to electric cooperatives to offer low-interest loans to residential and small business customers for energy saving retrofit to their homes or businesses. The other was an appropriations bill which contains funding for the Charleston Harbor Deepening Feasibility Study and design and construction of the Charleston Port. He said nothing is more important to our state than the deepening of the Charleston Harbor.
—Amy Jenkins