Ernest Hollings

Ernest Hollings
United States Senator from South Carolina
In office November 9, 1966 – January 3, 2005
Preceded by	Donald Russell
Succeeded by	Jim DeMint
106th Governor of South Carolina
In office January 20, 1959 – January 15, 1963
Lieutenant	Burnet R. Maybank Jr.
Preceded by	George Timmerman, Jr.
Succeeded by	Donald Russell
77th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina
In office January 18, 1955 – January 20, 1959
Governor	George Timmerman, Jr.
Preceded by	George Timmerman, Jr.
Succeeded by	Burnet Maybank Jr.
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from Charleston County
In office January 11, 1949 – January 11, 1955
Personal details
Born	Ernest Frederick Hollings (1922-01-01) January 1, 1922 Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Martha Patricia Salley Rita Liddy
Children	4
Alma mater	The Citadel University of South Carolina, Columbia
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1942–1945
Battles/wars	World War II

Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings (born January 1, 1922) served as a Democratic United States Senator from South Carolina from 1966 to 2005, as well as the 106th Governor of South Carolina (1959–1963) and the 77th Lieutenant Governor (1955–1959). He served 38 years and 55 days in the Senate, which makes him the 8th-longest-serving Senator in history. He served alongside Republican Strom Thurmond for 36 of those years, making them the longest-serving Senate duo in history, and Hollings the most senior junior senator from a state. At the age of 95, he is currently the oldest living U.S. Senator.

Early life and education

Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Wilhelmine Dorothea (Meyer) and Adolph Gevert Hollings, Sr.^[1][2] He was raised at 338 President St. in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood from the age of ten through enrolling in college. He graduated from The Citadel in 1942, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree. He received an LL.B. from the University of South Carolina in 1947 after only 21 months of study, and joined a law practice in Charleston.^[3] Hollings is a brother of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. He was married to Rita Liddy "Peatsy" Hollings from 1971 until her death in October 2012.^[4][4][5] He had four children (Michael,^[6] Helen,^[7] Patricia Salley,^[8] and Ernest the 3rd^[9]) with his first wife, (Martha) Patricia Salley Hollings.^[4][10][11] He is a Lutheran. In addition, Fritz and Patricia had two sons who died.^[12]

Hollings served as an officer in the U.S. Army's 353rd and 457th Artillery units from 1942 to 1945, during World War II, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service in direct support of combat operations from December 13, 1944 to May 1, 1945 in France and Germany. He received the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with five Bronze Service Stars for participation in the Tunisia, Southern France, Rome-Arno, Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns.^[13]

Political career

He served three terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1949 to 1954. After only one term, Hollings' colleagues elected him Speaker Pro Tempore in 1951 and 1953.^[14] He was subsequently elected Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina in 1954, and Governor in 1958 at age 36.

Governor of South Carolina

As governor of South Carolina from January 20, 1959, to January 15, 1963, Hollings worked to improve the state's educational system, helping to bring more industry and employment opportunities to the state. His term in office saw the establishment of the state's technical education system and its educational television network. He also called for and achieved significant increases in teachers' salaries, bringing them closer to the regional average. At the 1961 Governor's Conference on Business, Industry, Education and Agriculture in Columbia, S.C., he declared, "Today, in our complex society, education is the cornerstone upon which economic development must be built—and prosperity assured".^[15]

In 1962, during Hollings' term as governor, the Confederate battle flag was flown above the South Carolina State House underneath the U.S. and state flags to protest desegregation, where it would remain for thirty-eight years.^[16] In 2000 the state legislature voted to move the flag from above the state house to a Confederate soldiers' monument in front of the building,^[17] where it remained until 2015, when Republican governor Nikki Haley ordered it removed following the murder of black churchgoers by a Confederate sympathizer in the state earlier that year.^[18][19]

In his last address to the General Assembly on January 9, 1963, ahead of the peaceful admission to Clemson University of its first black student, Harvey Gantt, Hollings declared: "As we meet, South Carolina is running out of courts…this General Assembly must make clear South Carolina's choice, a government of laws rather than a government of men…This should be done with dignity. It should be done with law and order".^[20]

Hollings oversaw the last executions in South Carolina before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia, which temporarily banned capital punishment. During his term, eight inmates were put to death by electric chair. The last was rapist Douglas Thorne, on April 20, 1962.^[21]

He sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962 but lost to incumbent Olin D. Johnston.

United States Senator

Early Senate career

Johnston died on April 18, 1965. Hollings' successor as governor, Donald S. Russell, resigned in order to accept appointment to the Senate seat. In the summer of 1966, Hollings defeated Russell in the Democratic primary for the remaining two years of the term. He then narrowly won the special election on November 8, 1966, against the Democrat-turned-Republican Marshall Parker, and was sworn in shortly thereafter. He gained seniority on other newly elected U.S. senators who would have to wait until January 1967, to take the oath of office. In 1967, he was one of eleven senators who voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. The following year, Hollings won the Senate seat for his first full term when he again defeated Marshall Parker but by a much wider margin.

For thirty-six years (until January 2003), he served alongside Republican Strom Thurmond, making them the longest-serving Senate duo ever. This also made Hollings the longest-serving junior senator ever, even though he had more seniority than all but a few of his colleagues. Thurmond and Hollings generally had a good relationship despite their sometimes sharp philosophical differences, and frequently collaborated on legislation and projects to benefit South Carolina. Their combined seniority gave South Carolina clout in national politics well beyond its relatively small population. Only Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, Carl Hayden, John Stennis, Ted Stevens, Pat Leahy, Orrin Hatch, and Thad Cochran have served longer in the Senate than did Hollings.

In 1970, Hollings authored The Case Against Hunger: A Demand for a National Policy, acknowledging the Reverend I.D. Newman and Sister Mary Anthony for opening his eyes to the despair caused by hunger and helping him realize that he must do something about it.^[22] Hollings made headlines the year before when he toured poverty-stricken areas of South Carolina, often referred to as his "Hunger Tours." In February 1969, Hollings testified as to what he had seen on his fact-finding tours in front of the Senate Select Committee on Hunger and Human Needs. Charleston's News and Courier (now The Post and Courier) reported that "Senators, members of the press corps and visitors packed in the hearing room watched and listened in disbelief as Hollings detailed dozens of tragically poignant scenes of human suffering in his state."^[23] Hollings recommended to the committee that free food stamps be distributed to the most needy, and just over a day later, Senator George McGovern announced that free food stamps would be distributed in South Carolina as part of a national pilot program for feeding the hungry.^[23]

In the 1970s, Hollings joined with fellow senators Kennedy and Henry M. Jackson in a press conference to oppose President Gerald Ford's request that Congress end Richard Nixon's price controls on domestic oil, which had helped to cause the gasoline lines during the 1973 Oil Crisis.^[24] Hollings said he believed ending the price controls (as was eventually done in 1981) would be a "catastrophe" that would cause "economic chaos."^[24]

Presidential candidate

Hollings unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the presidential election of 1984. Hollings' wit and experience, as well as his call for a budget freeze, won him some positive attention, but his relatively conservative record alienated liberal Democrats, and he was never really noticed in a field dominated by Walter Mondale, John Glenn and Gary Hart. Hollings dropped out two days after losing badly in New Hampshire, and endorsed Hart a week later. His disdain for his competitors sometimes showed. He notably referred to Mondale as a "lapdog" and to former Astronaut Glenn as "Sky King" who was "confused in his capsule."^[25]

Later Senate career

During the 1988 Presidential primaries, Hollings endorsed Jesse Jackson.^[26]

On October 15, 1991, he was one of seven Southern Democrats who voted to confirm the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in a 52 to 48 vote, the narrowest margin of approval in more than a century.

Hollings remained very popular in South Carolina over the years, even as the state became increasingly friendly to Republicans at the national level. In his first three bids for a full term, he never dropped below 60 percent of the vote. In the 1992 election, however, he faced an unexpectedly close race against former Congressman Tommy Hartnett in what was otherwise a very good year for Democrats nationally. Hartnett had represented the Charleston area in Congress from 1981 to 1987, thus making him Hollings' congressman. His appeal in the Lowcountry – traditionally a swing region at the state level – enabled him to hold Hollings to only 50 percent of the vote.

In his last Senate race in 1998, Hollings faced Republican congressman Bob Inglis. One of the more heated and notable moments of the race was a newspaper interview in which Hollings referred to Inglis as a "goddamn skunk". Hollings was re-elected 52%–45%.

On January 7, 2003, Hollings introduced the controversial Universal National Service Act of 2006, which would require all men and women aged 18–26 (with some exceptions) to perform a year of military service.

On August 4, 2003, he announced that he would not run for re-election in November 2004. Republican Jim DeMint succeeded him.

As a senator, Hollings was noted for his support for legislation in the interests of the established media distribution industry (such as the proposed "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act"). His hard-line support of various client-side computer restrictions such as DRM and Trusted computing led the Fritz chip (a microchip that enforces such restrictions) to be nicknamed after him. Hollings also sponsored the Online Personal Privacy Act.^[27]

In his later career, Hollings was generally considered to be a moderate politically but was supportive of many civil rights bills. He voted for re-authorizing the Voting Rights Act in 1982. However, in 1967 he was one of the 11 senators who voted against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice.^[28] Hollings later voted in favor of the failed nomination of Robert Bork and also for the successful nomination of Clarence Thomas.

On fiscal issues, he was generally conservative, and was one of the primary sponsors of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, an attempt to enforce limits on government spending.

Hollings and Howell Heflin of Alabama were the only two Democratic senators to vote against the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.^[29]

Controversies

When Hollings embarked on tours of poor areas of South Carolina in 1968 and 1969 and testified as to his findings before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, he was accused of drawing unwanted attention to South Carolina when other states — North and South — also faced extreme poverty. Hollings knew South Carolina was not alone in its struggle and thought that if any politician was going to investigate hunger in South Carolina, it was going to at least be a South Carolinian. After a tour of an East Charleston slum, he said, "I don't want Romney and Kennedy coming here to look at my slums. As a matter of fact when I get caught up with my work, I think I may go look at the slums of Boston."^[30] For his efforts, Hollings was also accused of "scheming for the Negro vote." Hollings, who had seen plenty of white hunger and poverty and slums on his tours, responded, "You just don't make political points on hunger. The poor aren't registered to vote and they won't vote."^[31]

In 1981, Hollings had to apologize to fellow Democrat Howard Metzenbaum after Hollings referred to him as the "senator from B'nai B'rith" on the floor. Metzenbaum, who was Jewish, raised a point of personal privilege and Hollings's remarks were stricken from the record.^[32] Hollings himself was known as "the senator from Disney" for his support of the entertainment industry.^[33]

Hollings would become popular for the wrong reasons among fans of the MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-head after he said to Janet Reno, "We've got this… what is it… Buffcoat and Beaver or Beaver and something else. I haven't seen it, I don't watch it, but whatever it is, it was at 7, Buffcoat, and they put it on now at 10:30".^[34] After the remark, the mispronunciation of Beavis and Butt-head's names, particularly by characters the writers intended to ridicule, became a running gag on the show.

In 1993, Hollings told reporters that he attended international summits because, "Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find those potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."^[32] Hollings had previously caused controversy when responding to Yoshio Sakurauchi's commentary that Americans are lazy and illiterate. Hollings replied, "You should draw a mushroom cloud and put underneath it, 'Made in America by lazy and illiterate Americans and tested in Japan'."^[32]

Hollings penned a controversial editorial in the May 6, 2004, The Post and Courier, where he argued that Bush invaded Iraq possibly because "spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jew vote from the Democrats."^[35]

Post political life

In retirement, Hollings continues to write opinion editorials for newspapers around South Carolina and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. His opinion editorials are also published every week in EconomyInCrisis.org, an independent protectionist news blog. In 2008, the University of South Carolina Press published Making Government Work, a book authored by Hollings with Washington, D.C., journalist Kirk Victor, imparting Hollings' view on the changes needed in Washington. Among other things, the book recommends a dramatic decrease in the amount of campaign spending. It also attacks free trade policies as inherently destructive, suggesting that certain protectionist measures have built the United States, and only a few parties actually benefit from free trade, such as large manufacturing corporations.^[36]

Hollings started the Hollings Scholarship in 2005. This scholarship gives over 100 undergraduates from around the country a 10-week internship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a monetary scholarship for the school year.

Hollings helped to establish the Hollings Center for International Dialogue, an organization which promotes dialogue between the United States and Turkey, the nations of the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, and other countries with predominantly Muslim populations in order to open channels of communication, deepen cross-cultural understanding, expand people-to-people contacts, and generate new thinking on important international issues.

Hollings is on the Board of Advisors of the Charleston School of Law and is a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law there.^[37] He delivered the commencement address to the first graduating class there on May 19, 2007.^[38][39]

Further information

Senator Hollings played a Southern senator, Senator Marquand, whom Al Pacino attempts to woo in order to land the Democratic convention in the 1996 film City Hall.

Because of Strom Thurmond's longevity and length of service, Senator Hollings spent 36 years as the junior senator from South Carolina, despite having seniority over the vast majority of his peers. He finally became senior senator from South Carolina while serving alongside Lindsey Graham, but only for the last two years of his Senate service.

Electoral history

South Carolina U.S. Senate Special Election 1966

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings	223,790	51.35
	Republican	Marshall Parker	212,032	48.65

South Carolina U.S. Senate Election 1968

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings (incumbent)	404,060	61.89
	Republican	Marshall Parker	248,780	38.11

South Carolina U.S. Senate Election 1974

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings (incumbent)	356,126	69.50
	Republican	Gwen Bush	146,645	28.62
	Independent	Harold Hough	9,626	1.88

South Carolina U.S. Senate Election 1980

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings (incumbent)	612,556	70.37
	Republican	Marshall Mays	257,946	29.63

South Carolina U.S. Senate Election 1986

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings (incumbent)	463,354	63.10
	Republican	Henry McMaster	261,394	35.60

South Carolina U.S. Senate Election 1992

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings (incumbent)	591,030	50.07
	Republican	Thomas Hartnett	554,175	46.95
	Libertarian	Mark Johnson	22,962	1.95

South Carolina U.S. Senate Election 1998

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Democratic	Fritz Hollings (incumbent)	562,791	52.68
	Republican	Bob Inglis	488,132	45.69
	Libertarian	Richard T. Quillian	16,987	1.59

References

Further reading

• Ballantyne, David T. New Politics in the Old South: Ernest F. Hollings in the Civil Rights Era (U of South Carolina Press, 2016). 206 pp
• Minchin, Timothy J., “An Uphill Fight: Ernest F. Hollings and the Struggle to Protect the South Carolina Textile Industry, 1959–2005,” South Carolina Historical Magazine, 109 (July 2008), 187–211.

External links

• United States Congress. "Ernest Hollings (id: H000725)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. 
• The Papers of Fritz Hollings at the University of South Carolina
• "Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words," an online collection of documents from the Papers of Fritz Hollings at the University of SC
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/weekinreview/19bigp.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
• Center for Responsive Politics figures on Hollings' funding
• Salon article on the Online Personal Privacy Act
• LawMeme article about the Online Personal Privacy Act
• "Hollings's Harangue" NY Sun Article about the Howard Metzenbaum incident
• SCIway Biography of Ernest Frederick Hollings
• NGA Biography of Ernest Frederick Hollings

Party political offices
Preceded by George Timmerman	Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina 1954	Succeeded by Burnet Maybank, Jr.
	Democratic nominee for Governor of South Carolina 1958	Succeeded by Donald Russell
Preceded by Olin Johnston	Democratic nominee for Senator from South Carolina (Class 3) 1966, 1968, 1974, 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998	Succeeded by Inez Tenenbaum
Political offices
Preceded by George Timmerman	Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina January 18, 1955–January 20, 1959	Succeeded by Burnet Maybank, Jr.
	Governor of South Carolina January 20, 1959–January 15, 1963	Succeeded by Donald Russell
U.S. Senate
Preceded by Donald Russell	United States Senator (Class 3) from South Carolina 1966–2005 Served alongside: Strom Thurmond, Lindsey Graham	Succeeded by Jim DeMint
Preceded by Edmund Muskie	Chairperson of Senate Budget Committee 1980–1981	Succeeded by Pete Domenici
Preceded by John Danforth	Chairperson of Senate Commerce Committee 1987–1995	Succeeded by Larry Pressler
Preceded by John McCain	Chairperson of Senate Commerce Committee 2001–2003	Succeeded by John McCain
Honorary titles
Preceded by John Glenn	Oldest Living United States Senator (Sitting or Former) December 8, 2016–present	Incumbent

South Carolina's delegation(s) to the 90th–108th United States Congresses (ordered by seniority)
90th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: J. McMillan • M. Rivers • B. Dorn • R. Ashmore • A. Watson • T. Gettys
91st	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: J. McMillan • M. Rivers • B. Dorn • A. Watson • T. Gettys • J. Mann
92nd	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: J. McMillan • B. Dorn • T. Gettys • J. Mann • F. Spence • M. Davis
93rd	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: B. Dorn • T. Gettys • J. Mann • F. Spence • M. Davis • E. Young
94th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: J. Mann • F. Spence • M. Davis • B. Derrick • K. Holland • J. Jenrette
95th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: J. Mann • F. Spence • M. Davis • B. Derrick • K. Holland • J. Jenrette
96th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • M. Davis • B. Derrick • K. Holland • J. Jenrette • C. Campbell
97th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • K. Holland • C. Campbell • T. Hartnett • J. Napier
98th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • C. Campbell • T. Hartnett • J. Spratt • R. Tallon
99th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • C. Campbell • T. Hartnett • J. Spratt • R. Tallon
100th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • J. Spratt • R. Tallon • L. Patterson • A. Ravenel
101st	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • J. Spratt • R. Tallon • L. Patterson • A. Ravenel
102nd	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • J. Spratt • R. Tallon • L. Patterson • A. Ravenel
103rd	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • B. Derrick • J. Spratt • A. Ravenel • J. Clyburn • B. Inglis
104th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • J. Spratt • J. Clyburn • B. Inglis • L. Graham • M. Sanford
105th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • J. Spratt • J. Clyburn • B. Inglis • L. Graham • M. Sanford
106th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • J. Spratt • J. Clyburn • L. Graham • M. Sanford • J. DeMint
107th	Senate: S. Thurmond • E. Hollings	House: F. Spence • J. Spratt • J. Clyburn • L. Graham • J. DeMint • H. Brown • J. Wilson
108th	Senate: E. Hollings • L. Graham	House: J. Spratt • J. Clyburn • J. DeMint • H. Brown • J. Wilson • G. Barrett