SC Yellow Dogs

South Carolinians have an opportunity to help improve our state’s public school system by signing a petition to replace SC’s current standard of “minimally adequate education.” This petition supports an amendment inserting “a high quality education, allowing each student to reach his highest potential” into our state constitution.

Legislation to change the state constitution must be passed by a 2/3rds vote of the Senate and House of Representatives in order to put the amendment on the general election ballot for public vote in November, 2010. Please sign up today and let everyone know we value South Carolina public schools!

Here’s a really inspirational story from the Politico.

For anyone doubting that opportunity still exists in America, there is the story of Jaime Harrison.

Harrison is a top aide to House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a job that ranks among the most influential in Congress. He has an office at the dead center of the Capitol building — a place senators would envy — offering a perfectly aligned view of the Washington Monument. On the walls hang photos of him schmoozing with celebrities, politicians and celebrity politicians, from Dave Chappelle and Bono to Bill Richardson and Barack Obama. Most days, he works on the floor of the House of Representatives, directing Clyburn’s floor staff and conferring with members of Congress to make sure Democrats have enough votes to pass key legislation.

Consider that life experience, filled with the luminaries of politics and entertainment, and then contemplate the one into which Harrison was born in Orangeburg, S.C., a poor, majority-African-American town of 13,000. Orangeburg is the place where, in 1968, three civil rights protesters were killed and 27 were wounded when police fired into a crowd gathered at South Carolina State University in what became known as the Orangeburg massacre.

Harrison, now 32, was born almost exactly eight years after the massacre to a 15-year-old mother and her high school boyfriend. It was an inauspicious start, both in geography and circumstances, and no harbinger of what was to come.

Growing up, Harrison worked as a bingo hall caller, operating the ball machine and yelling the numbers out over the bowed heads of the players, the air smoky with the smell of hot dog grease.

“The boss always wanted me to go faster so he could get more games in,” he said. “I would speed it up, and then someone would say, ‘Boy, slow your ass down!’”

With his father gone and his mother often in Atlanta, Harrison was raised by his grandparents. His grandmother, who was 38 when he was born, had unfulfilled dreams of being a nurse. She had an eighth-grade education. His grandfather had finished the fourth grade and then worked in construction, building up Hilton Head Island. The family moved several times when he was young, from a house to a trailer home, then, after a foreclosure, to his great aunt’s house, and finally to a rental home.

When the foreclosure happened — he said it was the result of fraud — Harrison made a promise to himself that if he ever made any money, he would buy his grandparents a house. He never wanted them to relive the embarrassment of the foreclosure.

Despite the frequent moves, Harrison described a near-idyllic childhood filled with loving relatives, good food and comic books.

“People tell me, ‘Man, Jaime, you were dirt poor,’” he said. “Yeah, but I loved it.”

He ate his grandmother’s sumptuous food, savoring a favorite dish of lima beans and ham hocks. He honed his reading skills, diving into Spider-Man, X-Men and his grandparents’ bills. He scored well on standardized tests, impressing teachers who had already given him good grades.

As he got older, college brochures began to arrive. Although he hadn’t heard of the Ivy League, he did know that places like Harvard and Yale were prestigious. So when Yale held an admissions session in nearby Columbia, he borrowed his grandfather’s 1978 Ford LTD and headed off. An admissions video and an a cappella performance later, he was ready to apply.

The following spring was a time of high anxiety. Each day, Harrison walked expectantly down the dirt path from his grandparents’ rented duplex to the mailbox to look for the proverbial thick envelope.

He remembers the date even today, sitting in his Capitol office in a chair he had reupholstered to his liking. “April 2, 1994,” the day he fished out a meaty envelope and tore it open, his eyes flying over the page. Accepted. With a full scholarship.

“I got in! I got in!” he hollered, leaping into the air at the curb.

His grandmother rushed out to the porch. “Boy, why you screaming?”

“I got into Yale!” He ran back up the path and described to her what the letter said.

“She knew it was something that was really important to me,” he recalled. “I don’t know if she grasped how big it was.”

He phoned his mother, Patricia Stewart, to tell her the news.

“When he called me, it was like he just won the lottery,” Stewart said. “We all [were] excited.”

Harrison isn’t the only one in Washington with an Orangeburg connection. Nearly a decade before the massacre, Harrison’s boss, Clyburn, was a leader in the burgeoning civil rights movement at South Carolina State, organizing the first sit-ins in the state.

By the time Harrison applied to Yale in the ’90s, many of the battles Clyburn’s generation had waged against the indignities of discrimination had been won. Clyburn and his contemporaries had unlocked the doors that Harrison, 30 years later, would burst through.

“That’s as it should be,” Clyburn said. “His success is what we were sacrificing for. … Jaime Harrison may be standing on my shoulders. I’m standing on someone’s shoulders, too. He’ll provide some shoulders for other people to stand on.”

Harrison’s opening weeks at Yale were rocky, filled with doubts about whether he could compete with kids from the best high schools in the country.

His freshman-year roommate, a Catholic kid from Long Island who was the son of a lawyer and a nurse, asked Harrison to read over an essay he had written.

“I read it and thought, ‘This reads like a textbook.’ It was so good. I went back and read mine and thought, ‘Oh, God, I don’t think I should be here.’” Harrison went from getting straight A’s in high school to B’s and even a C+ his first semester in college. “It shook me hard.”

He sought help from the school’s writing coaches, worked diligently and slowly watched his grades pick up. On the social front, he excelled, transcending boundaries of race and background to cultivate friends in all areas of the university. He was elected treasurer of the Yale senior class.

“He’s something very unique,” said Harvey Goldblatt, who led Harrison’s residential college at Yale. “There’s an essential decency about him — very warm, very loyal, easily able to pick up on someone’s worth as a human being. … He’s one of my great stories.”

Harrison calls Goldblatt, a Jewish professor of Medieval Slavic literature originally from Canada, his “Yale dad,” one of several men who have served as stand-ins for an absent father.

When Harrison graduated, Goldblatt presented him with an award for the student whose story was most emblematic of the Yale experience. It was pouring rain and Goldblatt took to the podium to announce the winner.

“‘Gee, I wonder who this is going to be,’” he recalled joking to the crowd. “I’ve never said that before.” Harrison was the obvious winner.

After college, Harrison returned to Orangeburg to teach at his old high school for a year, where he lavished special attention on promising young black men grasping for role models. He then moved to Washington to work with a nonprofit educational group and later enrolled in law school at Georgetown before getting the job in Clyburn’s office.

In 2004, with a law degree in hand and a solid job, he went back to Orangeburg to make good on a promise.

“When he took my mom and dad to the house, they just cried like babies,” said Stewart, Harrison’s mom. “My dad, he couldn’t stop thanking him for what he did.”

He bought his grandparents a house in a good neighborhood with enough room for his grandfather, then a diabetic amputee, to maneuver his wheelchair.

“It was like they moved from the ‘hood to Beverly Hills,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t really Beverly Hills, but it felt like it.”

At work, Harrison manages Clyburn’s floor staff, devising strategies for passing important bills. Last spring, just after Democrats took control of Congress, Harrison faced his first major test when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) moved a bill that would have curbed military operations in Iraq.

“It was a tough vote. People on the left were saying it wasn’t tough enough. People on the right were saying it was too ambitious,” he said. “I remember going into an early meeting. That first whip count was ugly.”

Passing the bill also had personal meaning for Harrison. One of the students he had taught back in Orangeburg, a young African-American named Vorn Mack, died while serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq in 2003.

“He was a good kid,” Harrison recalled.

Harrison was prepared for the legislative battle, arming himself with a diagram of the House floor, showing where each member of the whip team would be deployed to track Democratic votes.

When the vote began, Harrison watched the tally board above the House chamber. As the vote count crested 218, he began to tear up. It had passed.

“It was such an emotional thing for me,” he said. His diagram had been a success, he made his boss look good, and maybe he had done something for the other Vorn Macks in Iraq, he thought.

Had Harrison been born in a different era, he might have used his smarts and likability to become the greatest mechanic Orangeburg had ever seen or the most heroic school bus driver or the most efficient factory floor manager. Instead, he plans to run for elective office someday.

“I’ve talked to people. I’ve thought about things,” he said. “Eventually it will happen.

“I’d love to serve in Congress, but I’d also love to help change South Carolina.”

Beth Padget thinks the South Carolina Democratic Party had a point about filing on Sunday. Here is what she said in a recent blog:

Sometimes it’s fun just to sit at your desk and await the “ping” alerting you to an e-mail. Especially during a super-charged election year.

Well the South Carolina Democratic Party wants you to know their people want to be in church on Sunday morning – not sitting around some office waiting for stragglers to file for office.

All kidding aside, I think the Democrats have a point. After all, this is South Carolina, buckle of the Bible Belt. But we have state laws that set the filing period for candidates running for a bunch of offices. By statute, the candidates file between noon on March 16 and noon on March 30. Well, this year, those dates come on Sundays.

And, I’m not good enough to do the math, but it’s got to be possible for the closing of the filing period to come on Easter Sunday. The opening fell on Palm Sunday this year.

So a short while ago, I get an e-mail from the South Carolina Democratic Party that was really addressed to state Attorney General Henry McMaster. Now, I hadn’t realized that his office had rendered an opinion that to me (if the quote is correct) is pretty unintelligible. It says, according to the Dems release: “I am unaware of any prohibitions to the various committees with whom the statements of intention of candidacy are to be filed receiving such on a Sunday in order to comply with such provision.”

Now, the Dems pretended they understood that sentence, so much so that they fired back, “Unfortunately, this opinion runs counter to South Carolina’s principles, and fails to consider that, when the ‘various committees’ accept filing, actual people have to be present regardless of their preference to be in church.” Now that I can understand. It means lots of people in South Carolina go to church on Sunday, and they’d prefer not having to worry about candidates needing to file for office.

As Carol Fowler wrote on behalf of the S.C. Democratic Party, “Having candidates file for office between 8 a.m. and noon on a Sunday may not be illegal, but it goes against the values of our state, which for a great many of us include Sunday morning worship services. I am disappointed that these values weren’t taken into consideration when you rendered your opinion.”

So, how about this: Change the silly state laws so the filing period doesn’t open and end on a Sunday.

Don’t you think this would be a good idea?

This is a really cool article I read on upstatetoday.com.

SENECA — West-Oak High School sophomore Hannah Brooks of Seneca has won a $500 savings bond for writing an essay on recycling.

Brooks was the big winner of the “Talking Trash” Recycling Essay Contest sponsored by the Oconee County Democratic Party. The contest was open to all public high school students in Oconee County.

“Let’s Talk Recycling!” focused on what is involved in the process of recycling newspapers, steel and aluminum cans. Her complete essay accompanies this story.

“I chose to do the three listed items because I remembered learning about them when going on a field trip in elementary school to a recycling center. And I recalled them telling us some of the items used in the recycling process,” Brooks said when asked why she selected those items.

The Oconee County Democratic Party sponsored the contest to give students an opportunity to enhance their research and writing skills, and through such efforts to enhance their own and their community’s awareness of the environmental benefits of recycling.

“It is especially pleasing to have a student voluntarily sign up for an academic challenge,” said Charlotte Holmes, contest coordinator. “The Democratic Party is proud to recognize Hannah, a busy student, for taking up the challenge and for reaching beyond what is just enough to get by in school.”

Students were instructed to pretend to be investigative reporters. From among a long list of items that Oconee County recycles at each of its 11 convenience centers, students were to choose three items and write about what happens to them after being deposited at a recycling center.

Following is Brooks’ winning essay:

Let’s talk recycling!

Newspaper Recycling: Ever wonder where your newspaper goes when you take it to the dump or leave it on the curb in your recycling bin? The paper collector sells it to a recycler, who then starts the recycling process.

At a paper mill, a chemical washing takes place to delete all the ink off. The paper is turned into pulp so contaminants are taken off such as tape and dirt. It is poured onto a wire to drain out and turns solid near the end of the wire. The paper is then flattened into continuous sheets of paper. The paper machine finishes a printed newspaper at a rate of 3,000 ft. per minute!

And guess what? Tomorrow when you pick up your newspaper, it will be the same newspaper previously read the week before. There are 900 tons of paper processed each day, which is equivalent to nine and a half miles high of newspaper.

Recycling Steel Cans: Removing the top, removing the bottom and flattening cans prepares steel cans to be ready for recycling. Usually called tin cans, they are actually made of very little tin and mostly steel. By flattening the cans, they take up less space, making them economical to ship.

The tin is removed from the cans through a chemical dipping process. The distilled tin cans are drained, rinsed and ready for shipping. They are now sold to dealers of steel mills to be made into new products.

Next, the tin taken off the original can is to be cleaned of paper and garbage. After being rinsed and drained, it is molded by the use of electricity. It is then used in chemical and pharmaceutical industries. It can also be alloyed to make bronze products.

So next time you decide to throw your everyday cans in the garbage… Think Recycling!

Your Aluminum: Aluminum is created in many forms to make many products. It is used in the making of drink cans, dinner trays and even door frames. It is also rolled to make “foil.” It all has the ability to be recycled.

In some states, you can exchange the cans at the store for money, but it still takes the same route from there. It is picked up at your curbside to be taken to the recycling depot.

Aluminum gets in the hands of many people: users, buyers and scrap metal dealers. It all eventually reaches a “smelter,” who then melts or shreds it into tiny pieces. They are made into ingots by the use of electricity.

Then they are sent to manufacturing plants and rolled out into sheets of aluminum where they are used in the making of many things such as aluminum cans all the way to car parts.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today released the following statement criticizing House Republicans for defeating the GIVE Act, HR 5563, legislation that promotes volunteerism and reauthorizes national service programs.

“What demonstrates true American values more than volunteering?  What better way to give back to our country and community than engage in service work? When our cities and our towns are in crisis, how do we rebuild them and get our neighbors back on their feet?  With volunteers-people giving their time, their care, their resources to make our neighborhoods and our nation a better place.  I am truly confounded as to why my colleagues would divide on partisan lines and defeat a bill that strengthens and provides for our national service organizations.

“This bill was approved unanimously by the Education and Labor Committee
44 to 0.  It authorizes extremely successful and effective organizations such as AmeriCorps, VISTA, Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparent Program, and Senior Companion Program. It also creates a new service-learning program called Summer of Service, which engages youth in service through summer volunteer opportunities.

“What do my Republican colleagues have against volunteerism?”

Columbia, SC- South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler released the following statement in response to the death of Ann ‘Tunky’ Osteen Yarborough Riley, wife of Gov. Richard W. Riley.

“It’s been said that behind every great man, there’s a great woman. Tunky Riley was definitely a great woman. As the first lady of our state, and in the Rileys’ years of public service since then, Tunky exemplified a wonderful combination of grace, warmth, and political savvy. She was as genuinely friendly toward neighborhood activists as she was toward Cabinet members and Presidents,” said Fowler. “South Carolina Democrats have always felt a great deal of affection for her, and we will miss her.”

The monthly Yellow Dog Chat with chair Carol Fowler was held last night, January 10th. For those of you able to join, your participation was greatly appreciated! We hope you were able to get some of your questions answered, and will have more for the next chat session.

To view the transcript, click here.

From The Times and Democrat
 
Washington, DC - Sixth District Congressman and House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today thanked the Children’s Defense Fund Action Council (CDFAC) for naming him one of the “Best Representatives for Children.” The CDFAC today released its 2007 Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard, which grades every Member of Congress based on key votes affecting children, and Congressman Clyburn voted to protect the health and well being of South Carolina’s children 100 percent of the time. Congressman Clyburn achieved this distinction by voting to support the first increase in the minimum wage in a decade, access and quality improvements in Head Start, and additional funds for student loans.

“My service in the Congress is about improving the lives of people, and especially children, in the Sixth Congressional District,” Congressman Clyburn said. “Many of the initiatives included in the Children’s Defense Fund scorecard were on the Congressional agenda because of our new leadership team’s focus on strengthening our families in meaningful ways.”

“I applaud Congressman Clyburn for his commitment to improving the lives of children in South Carolina,” said CDFAC President Marian Wright Edelman. “With 9.4 million uninsured children in America and nearly 13 million living in poverty, it is critical that we have Representatives committed to making children a priority. Congressman Clyburn is a dedicated advocate for children and has truly earned the distinction of being one of the best Representatives for children.”

The Children’s Defense Fund Action Council educates the nation about the needs of children and encourages preventative investment before they get sick or into trouble, drop out of school, or suffer family breakdown. The CDF Action Council began in 1969 and is a private, non-profit organization that has never taken government funds.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today released the following statement regarding passage of H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008: 

“Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a fiscally responsible and environmentally conscious energy bill that seeks to reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil and aid those Americans struggling to pay high gas costs. H.R. 5351 comprehensively invests resources into our wind, solar, and geothermal energy systems.  Furthermore, this legislation extends tax credits to producers of cleaner burning bio-diesel and cellulosic alcohol based fuels.     

“Since President Bush took office, gas prices are up 109%, and home heating prices are up 222%.  Over the same time period, oil company profits are up 313%.  With record oil prices and surging gasoline fees limiting the mobility of our nation’s travelers, now is the time to move our nation’s energy policies in a New Direction. 

“The Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act will invest in home-grown, American-owned energy supplies, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, make America less dependent on foreign oil, and reduce global warming.  I call on President Bush to end his veto threat of this vital legislation and to join the Congress in supporting an energy bill for today and future generations.”

Former Democratic National Comittee Chair Don Fowler breaks down the meaning of this term and answers other questions on youtube. Did we mention that he’s a super delegate?