Pictured from left are Ohio 11th Congressional District Candidate and Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown (wearing blue), U.S. Representative and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) of South Carolina, and Ohio 11th Congressional Ditsrict Candidate Nina Turner, a former Ohio senator and co-chair of Bernie SandersClevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com . Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
WASHINGTON, D.C. –Influential U.S. Rep James Clyburn (D-SC), the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives who is widely credited with turning around President Joe Biden's primary election campaign with an endorsement that brought him a win in South Carolina and ultimately the Democratic nomination that led to his general election victory on Nov. 3 over incumbent president Donald Trump, has endorsed Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown in the fight to replace new HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge in Congress representing Ohio's largely Black 11th congressional district.
But some Black Cleveland area activists called it grandstanding and a vehicle for Clyburn to indirectly champion police, particularly since he said that his opposition to "Medicare for all" and "defunding the police" are the major reasons for his endorsement of Brown.
They are accusing the Black Congressman of, in actuality, promoting police over Black activists and Black lives while meddling in Ohio's 11th congressional district race.
"It appears disingenuous for a seasoned and respected South Carolina Congressman with no real ties to greater Cleveland like Rep Clyburn to act in such a misleading fashion knowing that not one of the candidates in Ohio's 11th congressional district race, including Nina Turner and Shontel Brown, has shown the courage to really take on the police and to demand systemic police reforms and the defunding of police departments in the midst of so many questionable killings of unarmed Black people, particularly young Black men," said Cleveland activist Kathy Wray Coleman, head organizer of Women's March Cleveland and the leader of the grassroots group Imperial Women Coalition, which was founded around the murders of 11 Black Cleveland women by serial killer the late Anthony Sowell.
Both Women's March Cleveland and Women's March National support the concept of defunding of police departments across the country, including in Cleveland, a largely Black major American city and the largest city in Ohio's 11th congressional district, a city currently under a court monitored consent decree for police reforms with the federal government.
Coleman said that as a whole Black Cleveland activists have not made an endorsement in the congressional race in Ohio's 11th congressional district that is heating up and that Clyburn "is speaking out of both sides of his mouth in promoting police who do wrong while simultaneously pretending to have the best interest of the largely Black 11th congressional district constituents at heart."
Activist Alfred Porter Jr., president of Black on Black Crime Inc. said "Rep Clyburn should be looking at both sides rather than just promoting the police."
Ohio's 11th congressional district includes most of Cleveland, mainly its majority Black east side, and several of its eastern suburbs of Cuyahoga County, and a Black pocket of Akron and a few of Akron's Summit County suburbs.
A seasoned and respected Black lawmaker and the highest ranking Black member of Congress, Clyburn, 80, is a two-time majority whip, previously serving in the post from 2007 to 2011. He has served as the U.S. representative for South Carolina's 6th congressional district since 1993.
Also the chair of the county Democratic Party, its first Black and first female chair, Brown and front-runner Nina Turner, a former Ohio senator who was the surrogate for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign for president and his campaign co-chair when he ran again last year, are in a heated race to win Fudge's old job as congress person as 13 Democrats are on the ballot for next month's Democratic primary and two Republicans will compete for the Republican primary.
The general election where the Democratic and Republican winners of the primary will square-off is Nov 2.
All of the congressional candidates, both Democrats and Republicans alike, are Black, including Brown and Turner, who is also a former Cleveland councilwoman. In large part the politically divisive congressional race is seen as a contest between Turner and Brown, and between the moderate and progressive factions of the Democratic Party.
Both of them have a long list of endorsements, including, mayors, congress people, and city, county and state lawmakers. Among others, Turner is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who is not running for a fifth term this year, as well as six of greater Cleveland's state lawmakers, and Brown has snagged the endorsements of Columbus Congressman Joyce Beatty and Hillary Clinton.
Turner's campaign has raised more than $3.3 million to date, out distancing her opponents in fundraising and in television and other ads, though Brown, the underdog in comparison to Turner polls show, is holding her own. The Turner campaign issued a press release on Wednesday saying Turner had raised some $100,0000 in the 24-hour period since Clyburn endorsed Brown.
As to Clyburn's stance that he endorsed Brown partly because he is against Medicare for all and Turner supports it, Turner's campaign said Wednesday that Fudge, when she was congresswoman, as well as her two Black predecessors, the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and the late Louis Stokes, Ohio's first Black congressman. supported Medicare for all.
Simply put, Medicare for all is a national health insurance program that covers all U.S. residents free of charge and regardless of age on income.
Fudge was confirmed as HUD secretary by the U.S. Senate on March 10, leaving the congressional seat vacant until after the November election.
With Cleveland as its largest city, Cuyahoga County is a Democratic stronghold and the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties. And it is a 29 percent Black county. Cleveland is a Democratic stronghold too.
Jackson, 74, is the city's third Black mayor and a Turner ally, and he endorsed Turner over Brown in spite of his longtime political relationship with Fudge.
It is not at all surprising that Clyburn endorsed Brown, sources said, since Brown, 46, has positioned herself as Fudge's protege and Fudge served in Congress for 12 years before accepting Biden's invitation to lead HUD. Both Clyburn and Fudge are former chair's of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Head of the county's Democratic party since 2017, Brown is more beholding to the Democratic Party than Nina Turner.
But they both, no doubt, have establishment ties.
Turner is the clear front-runner to replace Fudge in Congress, polls show, and Brown is her closest opponent. And Rep Clyburn has no problem standing up for Fudge, and Fudge's political friends like Brown.
Just last year he lobbied Biden on Fudge's behalf.
Though Fudge eventually became HUD secretary, Rep. Clyburn tried to pressure Biden into naming her as his secretary of agriculture pick, Fudge saying at the time that Blacks routinely get the HUD secretary slot rather than the more lucrative secretary posts.
Rep. Clyburn told the New York Post for an article published on Thanksgiving day in 2020 that Biden, then the president-elect, should name Fudge, who was a congresswoman at the time, as his pick for agriculture secretary, and that the person selected to lead the a $150 billion agriculture department should be Black .
Biden, however, chose Thomas Vilseck instead.
There has been only one Black U.S. agriculture secretary, Mike Espy, a Democrat like Fudge, Clyburn and Biden, a former vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president.
Epsy is a former Mississippi congressman and former president Bill Clinton appointee who served as agriculture secretary from 1993-1994, Clinton's first year in office.
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