| Mr. Clout
Sunday, February 18, 2007
By Robert Behre - The Post and Courier
WASHINGTON - House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn knows his new position is pressure-packed, one where even watching the Super Bowl can take on political overtones.
After the game two weeks ago, Clyburn admitted that he was pulling for the Indianapolis Colts and head coach Tony Dungy to beat the Chicago Bears, but quickly added: "I wasn't going to make any public pronouncements. I need to get as many votes from Illinois as I can."
As Clyburn settles into his new duties as the third-highest-rankingleader in the 110th Congress, the person responsible for lining up votes on key pieces of legislation, he shows no sign of letting the pressure alter his personal, low-key approach. His high-pitched laugh still made him easy to pinpoint as he chatted with fellow lawmakers recently on a crowded House floor.
While he has ambitions for hastening an end to the Iraq war; for turning South Carolina's Interstate 95 corridor into a center for a new bio-fuel industry; and for improving the health, education and well-being of Palmetto State residents, he is keenly aware of the historic significance of his role. He is only the second black representative to serve as majority whip, and no black person has ever held a higher leadership post in the House.
"I basically only have one goal in life, and that is to destroy every myth I possibly can about black people," he said. "All these myths have grown up around people of color; so many are believed by people of color, so many are believed by other people."
Shattering those myths might be more difficult to measure than a vote on a particular bill, but Clyburn said it's more important in the long run.
"I think it has far-reaching consequences that people don't pay a lot of attention to. If a house is not built on a real solid foundation, sooner or later it's going to come down. I plan to do this job in such a way to change attitudes, so it won't take another 20 years for another black person to be in leadership.
"It's not Jim Clyburn. Jim Clyburn is just the only one of the Congressional Black Caucus positioned to become one of the top three in leadership, that's all."
Making friends
Clyburn's ascent to leadership in Congress began as soon as he was sworn in as a freshman after his 1992 election. He announced that he would seek the job of president of his freshman class.
"One of my colleagues, he literally laughed at me," he said.
Clyburn's campaign director arranged a meeting with then Speaker of the House Tom Foley and Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. They talked about how Clyburn was able to net 56 percent of the vote in a five-way primary race.
"A 10-minute meeting turned into a 40-minute meeting," he said. "They put the word out. I won."
About the same time he was elected co-president of that class, he also made an impression on two other colleagues.
Clyburn became a member of the House's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and he wanted a seat on the Aviation subcommittee. But when he heard his fellow freshman Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, Fla., saying a prayer for the last available seat, Clyburn had a change of heart.
"When they called my name, I passed. She got the slot. She had to have it. I didn't."
Rep. James Oberstar was watching, and Clyburn said the Minnesota Democrat later told him, "I saw what happened today. In all my years, I've never seen anything like that happen before."
Clyburn later wanted a seat on a conference committee hammering out a major transportation bill, not only to ensure that affirmative-action provisions remained intact but also to make sure that South Carolina received a more equitable share of federal gas-tax funds.
He approached Oberstar, who told him, "You will be on the conference if I have to give you my seat, because I never will forget what you did for Corrine Brown."
"He just has a real emotional attachment to me," Clyburn said of Oberstar. "And he comes from northern Minnesota; you couldn't find a black person up there if you had a Negro-finding machine."
The result was a 79 percent increase in South Carolina's return on gas taxes sent to Washington.
In another instance, Clyburn joined local lawmakers to fight for a $6 million grant for sewer improvements necessary to lure Nucor Steel to Berkeley County. There was a problem, though, because the bill had passed the House and Senate and was in a conference committee, which is not supposed to consider any additions not already considered by the House.
Clyburn said he knew the only way the money would get approved would be if Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, didn't object. As luck would have it, Clyburn's wife's sister had helped Stokes raise money in his home state.
"I said, 'Lou, remember that little reception that some of my friends had for you? We need a little favor. I just need you to look out the window when this comes up.' When the bill came out, it had the $6 million in it."
"All of this up here is so much about relationships," Clyburn said. "Relationships mean so much."
Serving as whip
Clyburn's rise through the ranks continued in 1998, 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. Last year he was unanimously elected chairman.
When the Democrats took control of the House, Clyburn laid the groundwork for the majority whip position by making hundreds of telephone calls and campaigning for Democrats in 26 congressional districts in 14 states.
Clyburn recently met with Rep. Roy Blunt, the Missouri Republican who served as majority whip last year.
"Jim and I are good personal friends," Blunt said, as the two sat down in his office to a lunch of pastrami sandwiches, potato chips and a pickle. "We'll disagree about the work we do on the House floor, but you'll never hear me say anything but good things about Jim Clyburn."
Clyburn said he must remain aware of the multiple divisions in the Democratic caucus, which includes 42 blacks, 21 Hispanics, an Asian-American, a conservative "Blue Dog" faction, a Progressive wing and other groups. "I'm expected to maintain collegiality in those different caucuses. Our caucus is far from being vanilla," he said.
"I think the biggest challenge Jim has is the size of his majority," Blunt said. "Only 15 (Democrats) can decide that it's not going to happen. Frankly, I'll be as sympathetic to that as anyone on the House floor."
Clyburn passed his early challenges this year, including a vote on the continuing resolution to fund the federal government. He managed to get 57 Republicans to support it. "I think even within our own caucus, our members are surprised we've gotten as much bipartisan support."
Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., shares four counties with Clyburn and was one of the Republicans voting yes. "We're in a time of war. We've got these guys coming back with all sorts of catastrophic injuries. I just couldn't in good conscience go back to my state and say I didn't vote for funding the government."
Brown and Clyburn appear in photographs on the walls of each other's offices. "I took that picture long before he became the whip," Brown said. "We do have a very unusual relationship. We kid all the time."
How life has changed
The new job means that the size of Clyburn's Washington staff has doubled. They occupy a series of choice offices scattered along three floors, not far from the Capitol's rotunda.
His new whip office, with its five glass chandeliers and ornately stenciled ceiling, is larger than some town halls, though he still maintains a district office in the Rayburn office building next door.
One door to his new office opens onto the imposing Statuary Hall, where the House of Representatives used to meet before the new chamber was built. Clyburn most often accesses his office through a small hallway that goes by the infirmary. A whiff of medicine hangs in the air.
He also has two security guards with him when he ventures outside the Capitol.
"My wife Emily, she holds fast to her privacy. She does as much as she thinks is required. She said, 'I didn't bargain for this,'?" Clyburn said of her first reaction to the new security detail.
But when it became clear that the agents would allow her to board an airplane without removing her shoes - which is difficult for her because of diabetes - she changed her mind.
"She said, 'Clyburn, I think I can get used to this. I don't have to take my shoes off at the airport.' That was funny."
Clyburn's schedule often includes 12-hour-or-longer days. He keeps in touch with his wife regularly via e-mail, but she is no fan of the limelight and travels from their home in Columbia to Washington only when necessary.
"I guess one of the good things about being as mature as I am chronologically," he said, "the kind of sacrifice you would make when you're 26 isn't as important when you're 66."
When he is home in South Carolina and one of his three daughters calls, sometimes they ask him what he is doing there. "I tell them, 'I thought I lived here.'?"
As a member of the Democratic leadership, his dues to the party's war chest are $300,000 per year.
"You've got to fund-raise for other candidates. It's one thing to hold the office. It's another to get people to support you in the office."
Clyburn said is equally happy campaigning, massaging legislation, working the House floor, finding common ground, even fundraising.
"There's nothing about what I do that I don't like. Fundraising is tough. It's not hard for you to ask. It's just hard realizing it is such a significant part of this process. The public doesn't want public financing, but then they get upset if there's too much money in the campaigns."
What it means to S.C.
Asked what Clyburn's service as majority whip will mean to voters in his congressional district and across South Carolina, he points to his vision for the I-95 corridor - a largely undeveloped area that cuts through some of the state's poverty-stricken areas and his own 6th Congressional District, which comprises all or part of 15 counties, including parts of Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester and Colleton counties. With his new influence, he would like an expanded federal push for cellulosic ethanol, a fuel made from assorted plants.
"We grow soybeans galore. Our energy alternatives should be home-grown, American-owned. We can do sugar cane and sugar beets."
If successful, the technology could promise new investment and a new livelihood.
"I do believe our state can be transformed through this," he said while sitting back at his desk, as lights on a distant clock show whether the House is in session and whether any vote is coming up.
Clyburn said he realizes that relatively few pieces of legislation have his name on them, so there might be less of a legacy associated with him, but that doesn't seem to bother him. There was the Gullah-Geechee Heritage Corridor Act. His hand also was in naming a federal courthouse in Columbia after retired federal Judge Matthew Perry and in creating the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor and the new Congaree National Park.
One of his proudest moments came when the descendants of four Clarendon County civil rights pioneers were honored with Congressional Gold Medals of Honor. "I was getting some history right that people didn't know about," he said. "I was near tears on the day we did that."
But he also noted that he worked hard on the airline employee whistle-blower act after a ValuJet plane crash outside Miami in 1996. "The attendants knew the airline was violating procedures" - the plane went down after a fire believed triggered by volatile oxygen canisters falsely labeled in the cargo hold - "but they were afraid of losing their jobs.
"The industry came down on me hard. They beat upon me bad. What they didn't realize is I am immune to that sort of thing."
While his bill died, Clyburn managed to get the same job protections for airline employees who report safety hazards into a reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Authority, and he said those rules helped thwart Richard Reid from detonating an explosive device hidden in his shoe during a trans-Atlantic passenger flight in December 2001. "The attendant reported that she reported what she saw as a result of that bill," he said.
"I think I have a much more extensive legislative record than has been fully realized. I have always operated under the assumption that there's no limit of what I can get accomplished if I don't get hung up on who gets credit."
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