Opposition Could Have Prevented Lawsuit

The art of electing politicians has been around for centuries, but African Americans are basically new to the political science game. Mistakes will be made but we can ill afford to have mistakes made by those who consider themselves to have “master political minds”. Yet, that is exactly what has happened in Reapportionment in South Carolina.

Mr. Dick Harpootlian, Mr. Rick Wade, Mr. David Agnew and Congressman James Clyburn are the self-appointed great “master political minds.” In the 2008 presidential election, Mr. Dick Harpootlian, now the Democratic Party Chairman was the State Campaign Director for Senator Barak Obama for the Democratic Primary. Mr. Rick Wade and Mr. David Agnew also held state-wide positions. Almost immediately after Mr. Obama was elected President, Mr. Dick Harpootlian became Chairman of the State Democratic Party. Mr. Rick Wade and David Agnew both received positions in the Obama Administration. Congressman James Clyburn became, you might say, “the go to man for South Carolina for the Obama Administration.” Clyburn was instrumental in getting his daughter a job on the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). He was also instrumental in getting Mr. Clay Middleton, the former Field Coordinator of the South Carolina Democratic Primary, a job with the Obama Administration in Washington DC.

FOR THE RECORD: I will do my best in this commentary to stick to the political facts as I know them and I would like to remind my readers that in politics “NOTHING IS PERSONAL.”

These four gentlemen: Agnew, Wade, Harpootlian and Clyburn are the eyes and ears for South Carolina Democrats in relationship to President Obama and his Administration. Now, Ladies and Gentleman can anyone please tell me, with these four men as “watchdogs” how could the Obama Justice Department, under the leadership of US Attorney General Eric Holder, approve the newly proposed South Carolina 124 House Districts and 7 Congressional Districts? According to the US Constitution, every decade everyone who is living in America must be physically counted. After the count is over, all elected political districts must be reapportioned based on the new numbers. This includes city and county councils, school boards, state house and senate districts and congressional districts. All districts should reflect an equal population.

Some strong religious believers say that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Now Ladies and Gentleman, we all know that in 2008 a Democrat was elected to the presidency but in most southern states, state and local politics are controlled by Republicans. In 1965, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Leadership Conference, African Americans went to Selma, Ala. and fought a long, bloody campaign that resulted in congress passing the 1965 Voter’s Rights Bill with a strong proviso that states ‘any state in the deep south and counties throughout America with a history of suppressing and not allowing minorities to participate fairly in the political process would be monitored by the United States Justice Department Voter’s Rights Division and every political change that takes place must be approved by this division’.

So, you see Ladies and Gentleman, there was absolutely no reason for the SC House and Congressional plan to have been approved by the US Department of Justice as submitted. But sometimes things happened that are not supposed to happen. There are 124 members in the South Carolina House of them 49 are Democrat. Can you believe that in the approved reapportionment, at least three sets of Democrats are running against each other which would reduce the number of Democrats in the House to 46 at a maximum? But it gets worst. Of 49 Democrats, most of them voted with the Republicans to approve the plan. And to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, none of the 49 House Democrats protested the plan to the US Justice Department. That is UNBELIVEABLE!! All 75 Republicans in the House was astonished when word came down that Obama’s Justice Department approved the discriminatory plan. They were dancing in the street to the tune of “Dixie” and singing happy days are here again.

Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D) put up a tremendous fight against the Congressional plan that was ultimately approved by the SC House and Senate. In the Senate all 19 Democratic Senators voted against the proposed reapportionment and sent correspondences and made phone calls to the Justice Department asking them not to approve the Senate’s plan and some even went so far as to ask them not to approve the House plan either. But to no avail.

The 4 voices for SC Democrats were conspicuously silent. Clyburn, Harpootlian, Wade, nor Agnew said a word to the Justice Department or President Obama that the SC Reapportionment Plan discriminated against African Americans and Democrats. In fact, Clyburn’s Congressional District gained several thousand more Black voters when these voters should have easily been placed in the other 6 Congressional Districts. This would have given African Americans more of a chance to elect more than 2 Black Democrats and the possibility of another White Democrat.

In 1968, I was stationed in Philadelphia, Pa. with the Southern Leadership Conference. Our team leaders were the late James Bevels and James Orange. I was 3 years older and wiser from the time we left Selma, Ala. Mr. Bevels explained that in the near future in the South, white republicans would take over politics and most of these representatives would be whites that left the Democratic Party because of Blacks. But because of what happened in Selma, known by many as the greatest victory in the Civil Rights movement, the US Justice Department would keep us empowered but we have to be wise enough to take advantage of it.

Now Harpootlian wants to speak out. Now he is talking about a lawsuit. This is what you call “covering your butt” because those four gentlemen and any third grade civics student would have known to protest the plan and the lawsuit would not have been necessary.

Here it is appropriate to quote Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

As promised: I stuck with the facts, just the facts, and did not deal with personalities.