[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 125 (Thursday, September 11, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           DEATH OF JOE SHINE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOE WILSON

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 11, 2003

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I learned just yesterday 
about the death of Joe Shine, who has been a longtime friend and 
advisor. We worked together when I was in the State Senate, as he 
served as the attorney for the Budget and Control Board.
  I am most appreciative of his chairmanship of the Lower Savannah 
Minority Affairs Committee for the Second Congressional District.
  My family and I offer our most sincere sympathy to Joe's family and 
friends.
  I would like to enter into the Record the following article published 
this morning in The State newspaper.

                    [From The State, Sept. 11, 2003]

Prominent Lawyer Joe Shine Dies at 53; Citadel Grad Was Former Counsel 
                         for Budget and Control

                         (By Valerie Bauerlein)

       Joe Shine, respected lawyer, public servant and husband of 
     a federal judge, collapsed and died unexpectedly Wednesday 
     morning. He was 53.
       Shine was the second black graduate of The Citadel and a 
     graduate of Harvard law school. He came back to his home 
     state to work, and became the first legal counsel for the 
     state's Budget and Control Board.
       Fred Carter, the board's former director and current chief 
     of staff for Gov. Mark Sanford, said he felt like part of him 
     was ripped out when he heard of Shine's death.
       ``I've had the privilege of working with thousands of 
     people in state government,'' Carter said. ``I don't know 
     that I could identify anybody that had greater integrity than 
     Joe Shine.''
       Shine grew up in Charleston, the son of a teacher and a 
     cook on naval ships. From his mother, he once said, he 
     learned to love knowledge and education, and from his father, 
     adventure and a sense of the world.
       Shine went to The Citadel in 1967, with the encouragement 
     of teachers at his high school, including Jim Clyburn, now a 
     U.S. representative.
  Shine said he was razzed because it was part of The Citadel culture, 
and because he was black. One cadet kicked him under the table at meals 
until his shins bled.
       ``There's an atmosphere there that the fittest survive,'' 
     he said in a 2002 interview with The Post and Courier of 
     Charleston.
       ``I decided that no one would determine who I was but me,'' 
     said Shine, who was named to The Citadel's board of visitors 
     last week.
       As a student at the military school, Shine honed the 
     discipline that friends say he carried through his life.
       He went to Harvard law school, served in the U.S. Air Force 
     and earned an MBA from Southern Illinois University at 
     Edwardsville.
       Shine worked in Washington, D.C., where he met his wife, 
     Margaret Seymour, then an attorney with the Office of Civil 
     Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.
       Shine loved the water and spent as much time kayaking and 
     sailing as he could.
       ``Joe was a big outdoorsman,'' said Ed Evans, the Budget 
     and Control Board's general counsel and Shine's former chief 
     of staff.
       ``His first date with his wife was a sailing adventure,'' 
     said Evans, laughing. ``He capsized the boat. Why she went 
     out on a second date, I'll never know.''
       Shine came back to South Carolina to serve as chief deputy 
     attorney general. He and Seymour had been dating less than a 
     year, but he proposed to her.
       They married in 1988.
       In 1993, Gov. Carroll Campbell picked Shine as the first 
     general counsel for the Budget and Control Board, the 
     administrative arm of state government.
       Shine supervised 11 attorneys at the board and defended the 
     state in cases ranging from the mundane to the controversial, 
     including a 1994 case on whether the state could fly the 
     Confederate flag.
       Shine defended the state's legal rights. Many people told 
     him he shouldn't.
       ``As a lawyer, I have an obligation to defend my client,'' 
     he told The Post and Courier. ``My job was to try to have the 
     case dismissed.''
       ``You have to have public servants who recognize their 
     responsibilities and are going to do their jobs. I don't 
     choose my cases. The cases come to me.''
       Shine retired last year from the Budget and Control Board. 
     He became general counsel for the Savannah River Site in June 
     2002.
       Clyburn said Shine asked his advice about working at SRS, 
     the subject of numerous discrimination claims.
       ``I told him he should do it,'' Clyburn said. ``I saw Joe's 
     going down there as general counsel as a step in the right 
     direction.''
       Shine commuted to Aiken, with Seymour commuting to 
     Spartanburg, where she is a federal district judge, the first 
     black woman named to the federal bench in the state.
       The family lives in Columbia's Northlake community. Friends 
     say Shine was devoted to his son, who turned 12 last 
     Thursday.
       The cause of Shine's death was not known Wednesday.
       Shine leaves a legacy of public service, as a past 
     president of the S.C. Bar Association Foundation, which 
     raises money for indigent defense, and as a leader in civic 
     groups, sailing clubs and his church, St. Martin's in the 
     Fields Episcopal Church.
       ``Joe had a level of clarity knowing the difference between 
     right and wrong that very few people had,'' Evans said. 
     ``More than that, he had the courage to do what was right.''

                          ____________________