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Everybody loves Jim. Should they?

By Corey Hutchins

\The Clyburn Question

Everybody loves Jim. Should they?

By Corey Hutchins

While it is not generally broadcast in the public arena it is widely believed that in the early ‘90s black members of the South Carolina General Assembly struck a deal with the Republicans to let the Palmetto State’s 2nd District become a safe Republican stronghold in exchange for a majority black district with allowance to elect a black representative. And so the 6th District was, in effect, gerrymandered to encompass the historically black parts in Charleston and Columbia, and the majority-black rural areas in between.

In 1992, from the 6th District, Jim Clyburn became the first black congressman elected to the U.S. House from South Carolina since Reconstruction, and since has held a very safe seat with no serious challenger in the past 15 years.

Currently, he is the third-ranking Democrat in the House and has amassed a heavy bit of clout in Washington. In essence it should be “all good.” But a look at Clyburn’s major contributions begs the question: Do his priorities lie with the residents of the 6th District or with the national Democratic Party and the Washington, D.C. interests, which have been filling the coffers of his campaign committee to near overflow? Contributors like Lockheed Martin, Pfizer and Big Tobacco. According to the Center for Responsive Government, his top contributors are lawyers and law firms. But Clyburn doesn’t really need any money from South Carolina because he never really needs to run any real campaign; his seat is locked and sealed until he chooses to retire.

Clyburn is, in essence, a stealth representative with no one to call him on anything he does. Which is not to say he is doing anything wrong, but while some would use such a position of leadership to direct federal dollars to the state, we don’t generally see him fighting for that. What we do see are stories in the Washington Post about how much money he is giving nationally to Democrats across the country. His biggest impact, it appears, is in D.C., which leads to the question of whether or not he’s more of a voting representative for the District of Columbia than for the 6th District of South Carolina.

While it is odd, but understandable, that Clyburn receives only a fraction of his contributions from his home state, what is not odd is why interest groups located conveniently around D.C. are donating by the truck load— they want access to the House Majority Whip, the third ranking Democrat in the Party.

What happens in this case is that it leaves the door open for the residents of the 6th District to end up shortchanged because they have a representative responding more to the national party and his Beltway contributors than to the constituents who vote for him.

And while the D.C. interest groups throw gobs of money at him, instead of using it to campaign on - which he doesn’t need to – Clyburn is donating it hand over fist to help get Democrats elected nationally. Perhaps he would act differently if he were in a more competitive district, a district like, say, John Spratt’s, where he has to be entirely connected to his constituents in order to get elected every time or face a certain loss to a Republican challenger.

So who has the veto power on Jim Clyburn? The residents of the 6th District, or the associations, companies, labor unions, lawyers and agents who flip him bills? The special interests are going to have some kind of pull when it comes down to it. While his seat is so safe in South Carolina, the only people who can hold him accountable are the people donating money to his campaign committee. Whether that is on Jim Clyburn or on the way the 6th District was created is up to interpretation.

Either way, Clyburn is going to be a representative of the 6th District and a U.S. Congressman for as long as he wants it; and while we love Jim Clyburn just as much as the next guy, we’re just sayin’…