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BACK TO POLITICAL PLAYBOOK Other Resources Beginnings of the CBC: The Congressional Black Caucus The 1996 Lowdown on the CBC: Offices and Members of the CBC Gerrymandering, Sherrymandering: The Problem With Redistricting

The Fall of the Congressional Black Caucus? Posted June 25, 1996 Dozens of black churches have burned to the ground across the country in recent months. As federal investigators sift through the ashes of the torched chapels, Americans are asking whether these crimes reveal a new eruption of vigorous racism in the country. In Congress, a group of lawmakers feel they have been watching the tide turn against American blacks -- and themselves -- since Republicans won control of the legislative branch in 1994. They are the 39 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group formed for black members in Congress to share their concerns and plan legislative strategy. The CBC enjoyed significant influence while Democrats controlled Congress. The creation of new "majority-minority" districts designed to elect more blacks to Congress had swelled the CBC's ranks. Thanks to sheer numbers and growing political savvy, its members had considerable clout within the ranks of Congressional Democrats. They were able to aid in derailing President Clinton's 1993 crime bill (which imposed limits on death penalty appeals), and influenced U.S. policy in Haiti and Somalia. But the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress and recent Supreme Court decrees have left black lawmakers in Congress in turmoil. The damage began on an institutional level: The turnover not only deprived the CBC of the leverage that came from controlling key swing votes in the majority party, it snuffed out its members' influence. Three black members lost their committee chairmanships, and seventeen lost their subcommittee chairmanships. Critically, Republicans also cut off funding for the CBC. Then came the GOP's Congressional agenda: a commitment to drastically cut back the federal government's guarantees to the poor, including harsh welfare reform and cuts in Medicaid spending. Black lawmakers vigorously denounced these and other Republican proposals, but found frustration in their minimal ability to shape them. If things weren't bad enough, black lawmakers have experienced a recent exodus of several CBC colleagues, and are now faced with court rulings which jeopardize the legality of the districts many others currently represent. The exodus was led by the former chairman of the CBC, the popular and charismatic Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-MD, who resigned his seat last year to take the helm of the NAACP. Rep. Mel Reynolds, D-IL, was convicted of sexual assault last year. Rep. Walter Tucker, D-CA, also was convicted last year, on charges of bribery and tax evasion. Rep. Cardiss Collins, D-IL, decided against seeking reelection in 1996. And Rep. Barbara Rose Collins, D-IL, has all but destroyed her reputation through managerial habits like forcing employees to take AIDS and lie detector tests. Most of these members are expected to be replaced by blacks. But far more alarming to the remaining members were recent Supreme Court rulings that have struck down majority black Congressional districts in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and court challenges to similar districts in other states. The effect will be that many Southern blacks in Congress will be forced to run in predominantly white districts that are unlikely to elect a black candidate. The redistricting could further ravage the ranks of the CBC. Here is a look at some of the black members of Congress fighting to keep their heads above water in an increasingly unfriendly climate on Capitol Hill, and a couple who buck the traditional mold: DONALD PAYNE (Representative, D-NJ): Payne, a four-term Representative, has been the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Payne, who took over the CBC from Mfume in 1994, had assumed a lower profile than his visible predecessor, although that was no doubt in part because the role of the CBC generally has been diminished. Payne, who is the first and only black Congressman from New Jersey, is one of Congress' most liberal members. In his winning campaign for CBC chair against Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-FL, Payne cast himself as a negotiator able to come to terms with Republican leaders. But he has vigorously attacked much of the Republican agenda. CHARLES RANGEL (Representative, D-NY): Rangel, who has represented New York in Congress since 1971, is one of the most powerful black members of the House. He is the senior member of the state delegation. Assuming he is re-elected this fall (a good assumption -- he won 97% of the vote in 1994), Rangel will be the ranking Democrat on the all-powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Despite his skill at advocating causes of minorities and the poor both in committees and press conferences, Rangel's rhetoric sometimes gets him into trouble -- last year he compared Republican policies to minorities and immigrants to the Hitler regime. CYNTHIA McKINNEY (Representative, D-GA): McKinney, a second-term Representative from Georgia, became the symbol of Democrats endangered by the recent court redistricting rulings. McKinney's 11th Georgia district was the first to go, and her re-election this fall in a mostly white district is not likely. The vocal daughter of a civil rights activist, McKinney vowed to fight racism and the white power structure, "the holdovers from the Civil War days." She has fought hard for the liberal causes she champions, such as federal guarantees for children and the working poor, and maintained clearly partisan positions, having denounced conservative Republicans and added her name to an ethics complaint filed against House Speaker Newt Gingrich. JESSE JACKSON, JR. (Representative, D-IL): Jackson -- yes, the son of the Reverend Jesse -- won a special election last year to fill seat of Rep. Mel Reynolds, D-IL, after Reynolds' conviction on sex charges related to his tawdry affair with a teenager. Jackson, too, had ethical clouds surrounding him when he entered Congress, namely an investigation into his relationship with an alleged heroin dealer whom prosecutors said Jackson helped to buy a car under a false name in 1991. But he has weathered that storm, and although he has had little chance to distinguish himself in Congress thus far, Jackson has recently taken a strong stand against the trend toward "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws that can impose life sentences on third-time offenders for certain crimes. On this genre of legislation, Jackson has quipped, "Where did the whole idea of playing baseball with people's lives come from in the first place?" CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN (Senator D-IL): Braun became a well-known national political figure in 1992, when she was elected as the only black Senator in the U.S. Congress. She boosted her influence by quickly maneuvering into a seat on the mighty Senate Finance Committee, but has been dogged by charges that she is ineffectual. Moseley-Braun has been a faithful Democrat, standing up for the administration and its allies as a member of the special Senate Committee investigating Whitewater. She has also taken a strong stand on issues of interest to African Americans. Most notably, Moseley-Braun faced down conservative Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, in 1993 over Senate approval of a confederate insignia, and forced him to retreat from a symbol she said blacks found offensive. She has also been nearly alone among black Washington politicians in opposing U.S. sanctions against Nigeria, which is ruled by a vicious military dictatorship. GARY FRANKS (Representative, R-CT): Franks, a third-term Representative from Connecticut, was the sole Republican in the CBC, and just one of two black Republicans in Congress. Never a friend of many blacks in Congress to begin with (in 1993 CBC members voted to exclude him after the first 30 minutes of their meetings), the conservative Franks has further alienated them with a recent tell-all book on the CBC. Among Franks' charges against the CBC, whose funding cut-off he vocally supported, were that its members are racist, anti-Semitic and blindly partisan. Franks has indicated that he will run for the seat of Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CT, in 1998. J.C. WATTS (Representative, R-OK): Watts, perhaps the most frequently-photographed freshman of the Congressional Class of 1994, is the only other black Republican in Congress. Unlike Franks, however, he had chosen not to join the CBC. A representative from Oklahoma, he was a football hero in the state before his political career. In Washington, Republicans have eagerly assigned Watts a visible role as a leading member of his freshman class. Bob Dole named Watts one of 12 co-chairs of his national campaign and picked him to marquee one of his major primary victory parties. Watts, a devout Christian, has championed "family values" issues in Congress, and unlike many of his black colleagues in Congress, feels that government welfare and affirmative-action programs provide little help to poor blacks in America.