>> Andrew Gobeil: Today on "The Big Picture," from the Catawba Reservation to Shaw Air Force Base to the U.S. House of Representatives, John Spratt has played a role in many of the events that have shaped South Carolina over the past few years.

We take a look at the congressman today.

Welcome to "The Big Picture."

I'm Andrew Gobeil.

One of the most powerful members of Congress controls billions of dollars from his seat as chair of the House Budget Committee.

But when he returns home to South Carolina, this powerful politician, who follows in the footsteps of other powerful Palmetto State politicians, jumps in his old domestic sedan and sleeps in the same home in which he grew up.

In this special edition of "The Big Picture," producer John Bullington takes a close look at United States Representative John Spratt.

>> Interestingly enough, our youngest child, Catherine, is probably the most interested of all in politics.

When I first ran, she was just before entering first grade.

>> Jane Spratt: Mm-hmm.

were out back in the magnolia tree, which was a favorite place to sort of perch and talk.

And I ran out the back door, hopped in the car, and sped out of the yard.

And Catherine said, "What's Daddy doing?"

And Susan said, "Catherine, Daddy is running for Congress."

Well, that didn't mean anything to somebody who'd not been in first grade.

She couldn't imagine her daddy "running" for anything.

>> Jane Spratt: [laughs] >> John Spratt: So Susan explained it to her.

She said, "Look, we're going to meet a lot of people, and then, one day, people will be asked to put a ballot, a piece of paper, with their choice in a box.

And then they'll count them all and see who wins."

And Catherine said, "If Daddy doesn't win, don't tell me."

>> Alex Sanders: John Spratt did win that election and an unbroken string of reelections since then.

Today, he stands at the height of his career on the national scene.

As chair of the House Budget Committee, he'll determine policy and direction for the nation.

This ascent to power began when he was a political unknown and a lawyer from the small South Carolina town of York.

♪ ♪ >> Hello, I'm Alex Sanders.

John Spratt has served in Congress for more than two decades.

All during that time, he looked after the sprawling Fifth Congressional District.

Now, he overseas much bigger territory, the federal budget.

John Spratt's never been a flashy, made-for-media congressman.

He's a studious, serious man who researches the issues and is not quick to jump in front of the camera.

John Spratt serves in one of the most important positions in Washington.

Back home in South Carolina, his friends and colleagues are not surprised.

>> I grew up in politics.

My father never ran for anything.

He always originally wanted to.

He went to see his father over in Fort Mill.

He'd been practicing law for a year or two.

And he sat down with his father in a rocking chair on the front porch, and he said, "Papa, you know, I went to law school out of state, and it would help me, I think, to get to know people.

I'll tell you what I've been thinking about.

I've been thinking about running for the state house of representatives."

His father turned to him and he said, "Do you mean to tell me we mortgaged Grandma's house to send you to law school and you're going to become a damn politician?"

And that was the end of my father's elective politics.

>> His dad was head of the Democratic party in York County for years, an executive committeeman.

And he had a lot of clout in the Democratic party in the state.

But he never sought public office, and he discouraged Johnny from running for public office.

He wanted him to be active in it, in politics, as far as the process was concerned, but he didn't want him to actively get into politics.

>> Spratt: My father was presiding over a stump meeting here in York.

Senator Wallace was not on the ticket, but he was on the dais with others.

And he got up and was able, between two speakers, to speak.

And another man who was running for office and who was not at all allied with Senator Wallace accused my father of engineering it so that Senator Wallace could speak, which was not true at all.

When my father told me--told him that he had not set that up, the man called him a liar, whereupon my father slugged him.

And the sheriff caught one of the...one of them, and the deputy sheriff caught the other, and kept them from really going after each other.

But it was, it was literally a fistfight for a few seconds there.

And that was the kind of atmosphere I grew up in.

>> Sanders: With politics in his blood, Spratt was student body president at both York High School and Davidson College.

He went off to Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship and later earned his law degree at Yale.

In his mid-20s, he married Jane Stacy from nearby Filbert.

They'd known each other since grade school.

After serving in the Army as a captain, he came back to his hometown of York to work in his father's law firm and raise a family.

Eleven years later, he would go against his father's advice and enter the arena of elective politics.

>> Tom planned to retire in 1974.

He had lunch with John's parents, John Sr. and Jan. Tom said, "Now, I plan to retire, and I want John to replace me."

One of them said, "If you talk to John, we'll roll you in cement and throw you in the Catawba River."

And John did not, then, run for office till they had both died.

>> My hope in coming back to York was, ultimately, to get into elective politics.

My father died shortly after I came back.

I took over his law practice.

I was 39 years old and thought I'd missed my ship.

>> Jane Spratt: Sounds young now, though, doesn't it?

>> John Spratt: Sure does.

Ken Holland, less than a week before the filing deadline, decided that he would not run again, a shock to everyone.

And there was the opportunity for me to seize.

I had a busy law practice.

Walking away from it was not going to be easy at all.

I struggled with the idea for a day and decided, by golly, I'll have to just deal with those other problems when that time comes.

If I don't take this opportunity, I'll reproach myself for the rest of my life for not having taken the opportunity.

>> In that first race, he had quite a contest for the, for the Democrat nomination.

And I would say that the press, for example, and many other observers didn't give him much of a chance originally.

One of the things they said about him, "He's really not a politician, you know.

He can't get out there and glad-hand and do the political things."

And he was not a natural at that.

But he was a very organized, serious, determined fellow and became, in my opinion, one of the better politicians because of that very characteristic.

>> Down in Winnsboro one night, when statewide candidates were running, John was there.

It was a largely black audience, and one gentleman got up in the back after they had made their formal presentations.

And if I recall, Governor Riley was there at that time as well.

But a gentleman got up in the back and had a question for Mr. Spratt.

He says, ah, "Mr. Spratt, I understand that you're a millionaire several times over.

What do you know about black people's problems or poor people's problems?

How can you identify with that?"

And John stood there and said, "Yes, I am wealthy.

And most of my wealth came from my parents, which I'm grateful for.

But I have to also tell you that I've added some to what they left me."

He says, "But let me ask you a question.

On John F. Kennedy, did you say the same thing?

Did you feel the same way?"

When John finished, this fellow slid down in his seat never to be heard from again.

>> Ferguson: A lot of people, politicians you'll see will go through a big crowd somewhere and slap everybody on the back and grab their hand and just move and, as they say, "work the crowd."

Well, Johnny is someone who'll stop him and want to talk to him about a problem or an issue or something, and he'll stand there and listen to 'em.

He might not be able to work the whole crowd, but he's interested in the people that have something to say and have problems that maybe he can do something about.

>> When you're talking with John-- and I stress "with" because it's very much back and forth-- you have his total attention.

You get those big eyes right at you, and they don't, they don't leave you.

And I think you hear about that from people all over the, all over the Fifth District, that when they've met John, they know he's met them.

>> Sanders: In that first political campaign, Spratt's style worked and voters remembered him.

He was in a four-way contest for the Democratic nomination at a time when Democrats dominated politics in South Carolina.

The race was about name recognition, not about experience, as none of the candidates had spent any significant time in public office.

Spratt won the nomination and went on to defeat his Republican opponent.

The Spratts were no strangers to Washington.

They'd lived there during part of his military service at the Pentagon.

But there were some surprises and adventures for him and his family.

>> I'll tell you, I could write a book about just going back and forth, even in the car, with three children, three cats and a dog, [laughing] going from South-- going from York, South Carolina to Washington D.C., because they pay-- You know, Johnny gets, actually, an allowance to fly home.

And his time is at a premium.

I know that.

But we weren't going to-- there's no way we were going to fly with that many people.

So we would get in the car, and it was like an adventure.

>> John Spratt: There was a soap opera.

I never saw it, but it was set on Capitol Hill.

The members of Congress had offices with chandeliers.

They had limo service.

They had all of the perks that you could possibly imagine.

And our girls thought that this was really humorous because I had a small office, certainly no chandelier, absolutely no limousine, none of the perks that were associated with being in Congress on the soap opera.

>> Sanders: Over the years, the hallmark of Spratt's service in Congress has been his hard work, both in Washington and back home in his district.

The district stretches across 14 counties and from the Upstate to the Pee Dee.

>> How he's able to do it, I don't know.

He comes back here on a regular basis and spends a lot of time.

With the pressures he's got in Washington being the budget writer, if you will, [chuckles] he, I don't see how he does that.

But he spends all of his time, and I'm sure his wife will tell you that he spends all of his time, as a congressman.

>> Spratt: I don't think anybody realizes how consuming this work can be.

I represent all or part of 14 different counties.

Now, that's just, say, a fourth of the state.

But geographically, it's a big territory.

I got a piece of the Pee Dee, a piece of the Piedmont, and part of the Midlands.

So it's really three different areas of the state, kind of like a three-ring circus.

You have to keep something going in each, each ring, each area so that people will understand you're out there working on their behalf.

And that's not easy.

There's no central media.

There's no central television or anything of that nature.

So you got to be at all of these different places at various times in the year to let people know you're out there working in their behalf.

Now, that's a pretty demanding requirement in a district like this, given the level of expectation people have.

>> Huitt: I never heard anybody say, when they sit down with him, have the opportunity to sit down on a one-on-one and he's out in the district-- he's out in the district an awful lot-- and if they've spent time one-on-one with him and if they've been served the way his offices across the district serve you, that answers the, that answers the question of why Republicans, obviously, vote for John Sprat.

>> When he comes to our Thanksgiving things, he very quietly slips in and sits down at one of the tables.

He doesn't come up to speak to whoever else may be there.

He comes over and talks to the children.

They climb all over him.

He wants to read the things they've written, the stories they've written.

>> Congressman Spratt has been probably the single most focused congressman in this area working to support education, and particularly higher education, and working to find the resources that help us to accomplish our mission.

And of course, here in the technical college system, it's about economic development.

Most recently, in 2004 I believe it was, the Congressman was successful in identifying funding that would allow us to expand this Institute for Manufacturing Technology focused on metalworking, machining, and automated manufacturing.

>> We went to Congressman Spratt probably four years ago with an idea for Ridgeway in Fairfield County.

It's a town of about 4,000 that had no physician, no dentist and not even a pharmacy.

And we put together a plan at his behest to bring all three of those services to Ridgeway.

And he did give us a federal line item to help to defray the cost.

Ridgeway does not have a very large political footprint, but it does have very large needs.

And the Congressman was quick to recognize that and to step in to really address it.

>> Sanders: In the 1990s, Spratt faced the biggest challenge in constituent service, issues that could affect the lives of just about every citizen in two areas of his district.

In the Upstate, a long-simmering land claim by the Catawba Indian Nation could have brought the region to an economic standstill.

In Sumter, cutbacks in funding threatened the future of Shaw Air Force Base and the hundreds of millions of dollars it brings to the state.

>> The Catawba Indian settlement has to go down as one of the monumental accomplishments.

There was a good chance that all of eastern York County, Chester County and Lancaster County would have been tied up for years in a litigation which, no matter how it came out, would have resulted in economic catastrophe for this area.

And John got through Congress a bill to extend the statute of limitations for the settlement by a year.

It had never been done before.

No one was even sure it was totally constitutional.

>> Sanders: Spratt's connection to the Catawbas may run deeper than just being their congressman.

His ancestor, Thomas "Kanawha" Spratt, came to this part of South Carolina in the 1700s.

He was befriended by the Catawbas, who gave him the name Kanawha.

The Indians gave him something more than a name.

They leased him 4,700 acres of land.

More than two centuries later, Kanawha Spratt's descendent John would return part of that favor and work with the Catawba Nation for a land claim settlement and restoration of federal recognition in 1993.

>> Everybody was taking this thing as kind of a joke.

They thought, you know, Well, heck, we don't have to worry about these Catawbas.

They have no political clout, so it'll go away.

Well, it didn't go away.

We were at the point to where we were going to have to file a claim against every individual landowner in the claim area, which would have been thousands and thousands of people.

Even if you owned a half-acre of land, you were going to have to go to court and defend that half-acre.

There was just no way out of it.

>> I was in the kind of business where you couldn't make a loan unless the property was free entirely.

And we had that Indian situation hanging over every piece of real estate.

And John saved the day on that whole, whole proposition.

>> Blue: I remember that John made a statement to me one time, and I really appreciate that.

We were down on the river on the reservation, and we had been speaking and talking about the issues in the nation.

And John said, "Chief, I want to tell you something."

He said, "Everything that you're asking or you want to get in this settlement package, I wish you could get it.

You deserve it," he said, "but I'm going to tell you, I can't sign off on everything that you want, simply because it won't fly in D.C. And I don't want to sign off on some kind of settlement package that will get bogged down in Washington.

I want to sign something, even though it may not be all you would like to have, at least it's something that we have a good chance of getting through legislation."

>> Spratt: But pulling it all together and finally pushing it to settlement and then implementing the settlement agreement took a full five years.

And...it was the single biggest constituent accomplishment.

Shaw Air Force Base was important.

I have to say, Shaw probably would be there without the help I gave it, but what I did with Shaw was recognize that we don't want to wait until the next base closing comes.

We want to act right now to see to it that Shaw has better facilities, or at least competitive facilities, with other peer bases.

And that worked year in and year out.

We didn't have to do anything spectacular, but it was steady, rebuilt Shaw Air Force Base from stem to stern.

>> John worked to-- along with the local folks in the community-- to try to strengthen that mission and make sure that our facilities were topnotch and that the mission was important.

And in the end, after going through Bracks in '91, '93, '95, and again in 2005, we have won out.

We are the F-16 premier base on the East Coast.

>> Sumter County is not a large part of his district, but he has been very attentive, particularly to the Shaw situation, Shaw Air Force Base.

And he has worked very diligently over the past 25 years to build up the mission out at Shaw and make it stronger so they would, would be able to weather any base closing procedures that went on over the years.

>> Sanders: Since his election in 1982 in a largely Democratic district, Spratt's home turf has dramatically turned Republican.

In the last ten years, he's faced serious challenges from Republican opponents, but he has successfully defeated every contender.

>> The far right of the Republican party does not like John Spratt, and they can cite certain votes.

But beyond that, that's where John's strength is.

First of all, he's got the Democrat support.

He's got the vast majority of the independent support.

And he gets elected with a fair amount of help from Republicans, believe it or not.

And it's very hard to say this is a horrible man because you can't-- it's not there.

I mean, he's, John is a very solid, fiscally conservative congressman who takes care of his people, and they like him.

People like John Spratt.

And he can't be beat.

John's got that seat as long as he wants it.

>> Foster: With all of the opposition that he's had from time to time, he's been able to remain there because it's really difficult, when you get right down to it, to find enough people who dislike him so much that they're willing to vote against him... unless they're just pulling a straight lever, you know.

>> Gullick: And I've had people come to me and say, "We're thinking about running against John."

And I've said, "That's the end of your career.

You will not win that race.

It cannot be won.

Trust me.

I've been there.

I've seen it."

>> Sanders: During his tenure in Washington, Spratt has become known as a bridge builder.

He counts the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 as his crowning legislative achievement.

Along with his rise to chair of the Budget Committee, he's the second ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

In both positions, he's known for reaching across party lines.

>> When I went to Washington, which I did a lot at that particular time, people on both sides of the aisle, as I would meet them-- or knew them, 'cause a lot of them had been former mayors that I had known a long time-- and they all had so much to say about John that was good, that he was a statesman, that he was a diplomat, he was a hard worker.

And I think they do call him a workhorse.

He works all the time.

And he doesn't play the partisanship game.

He's never done that.

>> Plumb: The irony is is that he's been lambasted by some of his opponents as being a liberal Democrat.

Well, you can call him a Democrat, but I'm not sure you can call him a liberal Democrat.

You talk to people in Washington, they'll tell you John is a member of the Blue Dog Democrats, conservative Democrats, and that he votes more in line with traditional Republican positions on many issues than he does what a lot of people think of as Democratic issues.

>> We have in our caucus people we call Yellow Dog Democrats.

That means this person's a Democrat come hell or high water, would vote for a Democrat even if it was a yellow dog.

We have--the Blue Dog Democrats are the more conservatives.

We have another group called the New Dems.

They're sort of pro-business oriented.

And people are always looking at John trying to figure out which one of these groups he fits into.

And nobody could ever put him in a group.

And he doesn't join any one of them.

If you look at his voting record, you says, "Hey, I think this guy's a Blue Dog."

But every now and then, I would go to John, and I'd see him casting a vote.

And I've said to him-- and I've done this more than once-- I've said, "John, are you sure you want to vote this way?"

He said, "Yes I am sure I want to vote this way."

He said, "There's some things that's got to get beyond politics."

>> Osteen: Spratt is an interesting politician, in my view, because he is, he's not a camera whore and not a microphone whore like many people in Congress are.

He's a workhorse.

He's not a show horse.

He doesn't look for the limelight.

He just wants to get things done.

>> He is the most able fellow, probably, in the United States House of Representatives.

He's well schooled in defense and awfully talented and able and, to my despair, didn't run for the Senate-- [chuckles] where he could have really gone right to the top.

>> Mack: I think he could have, could have already been the governor if he'd decided to run.

And a lot of times, congressmen can't get there, but I think people recognize his abilities.

And I think he could have been in the United States Senate if he'd wanted to.

He likes being the Congressman.

>> Spratt: Ultimately, I may have, could have a shot at being chairman of House Armed Services Committee, and having served there for a long period of time, I'd like to crown my career, maybe, or at least complete some things that I've learned over the years on that committee by possibly being the chairman of that committee.

That's, that's just a bit of a dream for the future because I'm happy where I am, doing what I'm doing for now on the Budget Committee, and I think I can, I think I can do something that--good for the country.

>> Sanders: Next step for John Spratt may not be a step at all.

Perhaps it'll just be the opportunity to continue to work where he feels he can do the most good.

He may not have completely ignored his father's advice about not getting into politics after all.

He appears to be more interested in getting things done than in gaining political points.

He still lives in the town of York, in the same house where he grew up.

His home telephone number is listed in the public phone directory.

And he moves with ease from chairing a committee on the Hill to celebrating the Fourth of July in a small town back home.

John Spratt knows where he came from, and he knows very well where he wants to go.

>> Spratt: My parents believed in me, too.

So they raised me with high expectations.

And I tried to achieve them.

And they gave me lots of opportunities.

And I have to acknowledge that.

And I had a huge advantage of some mentors in this community, from football coaches to Boy Scout leaders to high school teachers who-- and to our ministers-- who all had an impact on my personality.

Maybe it's because they thought there was a spark here or something here that was worth cultivating, but being a small town, I got that recognition early on and got lots of encouragement, lots of guidance, lots of support and inspiration as a consequence of it.

So I don't attribute much of what I've succeeded in that sense to myself but to them because I was simply fulfilling their expectations.

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