John Jenrette Obituary

John W. Jenrette, Jr. MURRELL'S INLET, SC - Former Sixth District Democratic Congressman John Wilson Jenrette, Jr., 86, passed quietly on Friday, March 17th at St. Gabriel, an assisted living facility, where he had been a resident for the past two years. John was a charismatic, consequential and controversial political figure on the South Carolina and national stages. Before becoming mired in controversy, he provided outsized representation to his beloved district stretching from the Grand Strand through the Pee Dee section of South Carolina. As early as the 1960s and 1970s, John saw the potential and laid the groundwork for this rural, underserved region to become one of the fastest growing places in the U.S. His colorful escapades and dramatic downfall obscured a common touch and dedicated public servant. "The 6th District was his heartbeat," said his wife Rosemary Jenrette. He was born in Conway, S.C. in 1936 to John W. Jenrette and Mary Ellen Herring Jenrette of Loris, South Carolina. He was predeceased by his older sister, Opal Jenrette Robertson. John leaves behind his wife, Rosemary Long Jenrette. The couple married in 1992. He also is survived by two children, his daughter, Elizabeth (Ralph) of Myrtle Beach, S.C. and his son, former naval seaman Harold Hampton Jenrette most recently of Charleston, S.C. and his two beloved grandsons, to whom he was known as JPop, Tradd (Bennett) of Myrtle Beach and Beau (Abby) of New York City. As well as Rosemary's son, Brooks Quickel and his children McCain and Grace. John was married three times. His first wife, Sally Jordan Floyd, the mother of his children, is a classical pianist, respected piano teacher and realtor in the Tilghman Beach section of North Myrtle Beach. His flamboyant and controversial second wife, then Rita Carpenter, who was with him through much of his political and publicity woes, is now an Italian princess. John's final wife, Rosemary Long Jenrette, now of Conway, was a beloved Horry County school administrator and currently works as a well-known interior design consultant. They shared an oceanfront house in Myrtle Beach and Palm City, FL. Rosemary provided a stable, nourishing final chapter to what had been a volatile life of meteoric rises and Icarus-like falls. The combination of Rosemary's enduring dedication and John's late-life equanimity, allowed him to finally create a stable life for himself. In many ways, John was ahead of his time. He was an early progressive who saw the potential in people of all colors. Many of his Black staff members were astonished when he paid them the same as their White colleagues in the post-Jim Crow 1970s. An early congressional campaign ad set to the music of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin," questioned the legitimacy of sending U.S. troops overseas without a formal declaration of war. His 1970s drug policy encouraged "harsh penalties for the pushers and education for the people." The colorful antics of his personal life, deemed scandalous and career-ending in the 1970s, would likely be deemed normalized roguery in the fraught and divisive political landscape of the 21st century. Despite a childhood of modest circumstances in Loris, S.C., John's family had an impressive lineage that was tightly woven with early South Carolina history. The Jenrette Family are of French Huguenot decent, having arrived near Georgetown in 1777 on the ship carrying General Lafayette, a Frenchman who would go on to fight alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War. John was proud of his family's history. He was a member of the French Huguenot Church in Charleston and even named one of his operating companies LeHuguenot, Inc. Congressman James E. Clyburn, two-time House Majority Whip and the lone remaining Democrat in the South Carolina Congressional Delegation, observed that "John's humble beginnings in rural South Carolina filled him with a passion to help the powerless, and his outsized charm enabled him to enter the halls of power. His style and wit earned him a place in the colorful and sometimes controversial political history of South Carolina. I was fortunate to have him as a friend and confidant." John was a first-class athlete in high school where he was a three star varsity athlete in 1954. He parlayed his prowess on the Loris football field into a partial scholarship at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. After graduating from law school at the University of South Carolina in 1962, he founded an influential law firm in Ocean Drive, which soon became part of the newly formed City of North Myrtle Beach. John served on active duty as a U.S. Army officer and then served several years in the South Carolina National Guard. He continued his work as a businessman, lawyer and city judge before being elected to the South Carolina State House of Representatives in 1964 as a Democrat. John represented the Horry County area from 1965-1972. During his time in Columbia, he served on the Local Government Committee and the powerful Ways & Means Committee. The pivotal role that John played in the establishment of home rule for the District of Columbia is widely underappreciated. For much of the post-WWII period, southern segregationists maintained control of the city's budget and laws. Aided by support from the NAACP, John ran against Representative John McMillian, popularly known as Johnny Mac. McMillan, who chaired the committee overseeing the District, consistently refused to allow a vote on home rule out of committee for a full House vote, frequently drawing the ire of President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. In a shocking upset in the 1972 Democratic 6th District primary, John defeated McMillan who had been the longest-serving Congressman in South Carolina history. McMillian petulantly blamed Black voters for his defeat, "The colored people were bought out." With McMillan defeated, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act on December 24, 1973. It was signed by President Richard Nixon. The bruising primary and the 1972 Republican landslide, anchored at the top of the ticket by Richard Nixon, led to John's subsequent defeat by State Representative Edward Young of Florence in the general election. Undeterred, John ran again in 1974, and with President Nixon in the throes of the Watergate scandal, rode the Democratic wave into the House of Representatives. The newly-elected Congressman John Jenrette was selected to join the House Majority leadership team as a Deputy Whip shortly after arriving in Washington in 1975, and he served on the Democratic leadership team as a Deputy Whip for all six years he served in Congress. He served first on the House Agriculture Committee and then on the prestigious House Appropriations Committee. According to Doug Wendel, an early chief of staff, John's major accomplishment was passing legislation to have the Federal Government recognize tourism as a major industry in the U.S. He helped establish the first Assistant Secretary of Tourism position in the Commerce Department. According to Wendel, who went on to become President and CEO of Burroughs and Chapin Company, the initial developers of Myrtle Beach, John's crowning achievement in tourism was establishing and becoming the first chairman of the United States Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus. It immediately became the House's largest caucus. John placed great emphasis on constituent service. He and his staff were widely recognized as the most responsive office the Sixth District had ever seen. He prided himself in assisting the average person in solving problems with the Federal Government, Veterans' Affairs or Social Security Departments. Among his many constituent services was securing federal funding for a high span bridge over the Sampit River in Georgetown, S.C., allowing sea-going vessels to travel upstream. John was the first Member of Congress to endorse Jimmy Carter for President. Carter campaigned in South Carolina for John, and John campaigned for Carter in South Carolina and elsewhere, and persuaded a large number of congressional colleagues to support Carter during the nominating process. When Jimmy Carter became the Democratic nominee in the summer of 1976, many believed that John was on course for a major position in the Democratic Party leadership-perhaps even Speaker of the House. But this was not to be. John was caught up in an initial bawdy scandal as it was reported that he and then wife, Rita, engaged in a much-publicized spontaneous liaison on the Capitol steps. Rita has since recanted the story, but the damage was done. Soon a more serious cloud appeared on the horizon: John became embroiled in the Abscam undercover FBI operation and was accused of accepting a $50,000 bribe from an undercover agent posing as an Arab sheikh. After a lengthy trial, he was found guilty in October 1980 a few weeks before his Congressional election against Republican John Napier. That November he lost re-election by just a slim margin despite his conviction just days earlier. "He had no campaign money, and he'd just been convicted three weeks before, but only lost by three percentage points. He was basically beloved by a large segment of the population (in his district)," said John Clark, a former staffer. In later years, John would describe the period preceding his bribery charge as a very difficult personal time when he struggled with alcohol abuse. He maintained that he was under the influence at the time of his arrest. John was sentenced to two years in prison, of which he served 13 months. In 1981 John and Rita separated and divorced later that same year. Having re-centered his life on his beloved Grand Strand, John met and married Rosemary in 1992. With government and legal work no longer an option, John drew on his considerable entrepreneurial instincts, embarking on a series of local and international business ventures. In 2017, the book Capitol Steps and Missteps: The Wild, Improbable Ride of Congressman John Jenrette was published. While promoting the book, John described his years since Congress as including "marketing an experimental balloon-operated flotation device; running a national chain of timeshares; breeding horses in Bulgaria; and selling Phillip Morris cigarettes in Eastern Europe immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union". He also imported wine from Hungary and antique furniture from Eastern Europe. John also became a developer of major coastal property in North Myrtle Beach. As his friend Congressman Clyburn remarked toward the end of John's life, "John never stopped dreaming big." There will be a service and burial on Friday, April 14 at 1pm at the French Huguenot Church 136 Church Street Charleston, S.C. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in John's memory to either Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, www.brookgreen.org/memorial-and-tribute-gifts or The John W. Jenrette Jr. Endowment for Legislative Studies at Coastal Carolina University www.coastal.edu/endowment/jenrette/ . Please sign an online guestbook at www.goldfinchfuneralhome.com Goldfinch Funeral Home, Conway Chapel is in charge of the arrangements. Visit our guestbook at legacy.com/obituaries/charleston