SC Rep. Clyburn, family, friends praise late congressman John Spratt at funeral in York
American presidents and world heads of state knew him as “Representative John Spratt,” or the “Honorable Mr. Spratt.”
But in the small city of York in South Carolina where he grew up, lived and died Saturday at age 82 after almost three decades in Congress, everybody called him “Johnny.”
Spratt, a Democrat who represented South Carolina’s 5th District for 28 years, passed from complications from Parkinson’s disease.
Spratt served in Congress from election in 1982 until Republican Mick Mulvaney defeated him in 2010. The 5th district covers all of York, Lancaster and Chester counties in South Carolina, plus other Upstate counties.
The Rev. Nick Setzer told the crowd in Spratt’s funeral introduction Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church in downtown York: “John — or Johnny as people in York always knew him — is rejoicing now.”
‘Johnny’ was not just any smart guy from a small rural place who became a lawyer. He was, according to accounts from people in both political parties, a financial and national defense expert whose work on American military defense during the Cold War and Middle Eastern conflicts, and economic policy, will remain part of this nation’s history forever.
Rep. James “Jim” Clyburn, South Carolina’s only Democratic member of the House of Representatives and one of America’s most well-known African-American political leaders, told the gathering that Spratt was a confidant, close mentor and friend while they served decades together in Washington. Both men had three daughters and juggled family with politics.
“I loved John Spratt,” Clyburn said.
Clyburn told the crowd that from the first day the two men worked together more than 35 years ago, he knew Spratt was among the smartest people he had ever met. Spratt was the U.S. House Budget Committee chair who worked to pass the nation’s Balanced Budget Act in 1997.
“The last time our nation had a balanced budget, John Spratt wrote it,” Clyburn said.
A family man, too
Daughter Catherine Spratt, one of three daughters to John and Jane Spratt in their 56-year marriage, used humor during the funeral to describe her father as a regular guy. Catherine told the laughing crowd about how her father drove his car until it almost ran out of fuel, his legendary budget wonkishness, and how her father pushed off his old law and science books on his kids.
She said that her father, an Oxford scholar and Yale law graduate, could have worked for big money at a New York law firm. But he chose to help people in South Carolina and the country, she said.
“He came back home to York where he served his community,” Catherine Spratt said.
York, with around 9,000 residents, is west of Rock Hill and southwest of Charlotte.
Catherine told the crowd what they all knew and laughed about: John Spratt — a congressman for 28 years — was such a believer in accessibility to the people that he always had his home phone number and Kings Mountain Street house address listed publicly in the York County phone books.
Politician who worked with both parties
In the days since Spratt died, American leaders of both parties have praised his humility, knowledge, and intellect.
“John Spratt understood something that many politicians don’t: that the point of public service isn’t to make headlines or to put your approval rating on a shelf and admire it,” former president Barack Obama said in a statement to Catherine Spratt she shared online. “It’s to make life better for the people you were elected to serve. That’s what John did again and again, and I will always be grateful for his vision, his decency, and his courage in the moments that mattered most. Michelle and I are thinking of John’s family and everyone who admired a deeply good man.”
Republicans such as S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham — who was in Congress with Spratt for many years —praised Spratt’s intellect and ability to work across party lines.
Other national and South Carolina politicians such as Democrats President Joe Biden and former president Bill Clinton, and Republicans S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster and current 5th District Rep. Ralph Norman, issued statements in recent days praising Spratt’s constituent service and statesmanship.
At the funeral, the people in attendance mourned not just a congressman who has passed, but a friend who has gone.
Jeffrey Sligh, a York County musician and music professor who worked in Spratt’s Rock Hill congressional district office during all of Spratt’s tenure in Congress, called Spratt a great and humble man.
“I am so proud to have spent so much of my life with John,” Sligh said.
Former S.C. Rep. Sam Foster of Rock Hill, who like Spratt has part of Interstate 77 between Columbia and Rock Hill named in his honor, supported Spratt for decades politically. A Chester native and the first Black high school principal in integrated Rock Hill schools, Foster was a crucial Spratt campaigner.
“John Spratt deeply cared for all people,” Foster said.
Rock Hill lawyer Jim Morton, former York County Democratic Party chairman, said Spratt’s combination of wisdom, knowledge and deep care for people’s lives is a combination the American Congress may never see again.
“There will never be another John Spratt,” Morton said.
This story was originally published December 18, 2024 at 3:29 PM.
