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Ernest Hollings

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 Governor of South Carolina (1959-1963) and Lt. Governor (1955-1959).

Early life

Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina and 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. Hollings is a brother of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. He is married to Rita "Peatsy" Liddy and has four children. He is a Lutheran.

Hollings served as an officer in the U.S. Army's 323rd and 457th Artillery units from 1942 to 1945, during World War II, and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Political career

He was first elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1948. He was subsequently elected lieutenant governor of South Carolina in 1954, and Governor at age 36 in 1958.

Governor of South Carolina

During his governorship (1959-1963), he signed legislation ordering the Confederate Flag to be raised over the state capital to commemorate the 100th anniversary of South Carolina's secession from the union, and to protest the growing civil rights movement. He sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962, but lost to incumbent Olin D. Johnston.

While Governor, Hollings supported racial segregation and opposed federal intervention in this area on "state's rights" grounds. However, he later took much more liberal positions. In 1983, he said about his early policy, “I knew it was wrong, but there wasn't anything you could do about it, coming along politically [in the South].”

Just before his term ended, he provided a peaceful admission of first African American student Harvey Gant to Clemson University, declaring in Legislature: We’ve run out of courts; we’ve run out of time. We are a government of laws, not of men. Harvey Gant will be admitted to Clemson and there will be no violence.

Governor 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.

United States Senator

Early Senate career

Sen. Johnston died on April 18, 1965. Hollings' successor as Governor, Donald S. Russell, resigned in order to accept appointment to the Senate seat, and Hollings defeated Russell in the Democratic primary for the remaining two years of the term. He then won the November 1966 special election. He was subsequently elected to a full six-year term in 1968, and served for six full terms. For 36 years (until January 2003), he served alongside Republican Strom Thurmond, making them the longest-serving Senate duo ever. The two generally had a good relationship despite their sometimes sharp philosophical differences, and frequently collaborated on legislation and projects to benefit South Carolina. Only Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, Carl Hayden, John Stennis and Ted Stevens have served longer in the Senate.

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."

Later Senate career

During the 1988 Presidential primaries, he endorsed Jesse Jackson.

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 reelected 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 (S. 2201).

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 African-American Supreme Court justice. 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.

Controversies

In 1981, Hollings had to apologize to fellow Democrat Howard Metzenbaum after Hollings referred to him as the "senator from B'nai Brith" on the floor. Metzenbaum, who was Jewish, raised a point of personal privilege and Hollings's remarks were stricken from the record.

Hollings would become popular for the wrong reasons among fans of 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". After the remark, mispronouncing Beavis and Butt-Head's names became a running gag on the show.

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 Jewish vote from the Democrats."

Post political life

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.

He will be the speaker at the Charleston School of Law's first graduating class ceremony.

Aphorisms

On stubbornness:

"There's no education in the second kick of a mule."

To opponents of government regulation:

"Letting y'all regulate yourselves is like delivering lettuce by way of a rabbit."

On his marriage:

"People always wonder how Peatsy and I stay together, with so many divorces around us. And a friend of ours used to say, 'It's simple. They have a lot in common. They're both in love with the same fella.' "

[During her husband's campaign for his party's presidential nomination in 1984, a reporter called their hotel room and asked to speak to Senator Hollings. Mrs. Hollings held the phone away from her mouth and said, "Hey, mister, you Hollings?"]

Responding to a Republican challenger who dared him to take a drug test:

"I'll take a drug test if you take an I.Q. test."

While debating John Glenn, the former astronaut:

"But what have you done in this world?"

On President Bush's effort to distance himself from the Enron scandal:

"I did not have political relations with that man, Ken Lay."

"I've never seen a better example of cash-and-carry government than this Bush administration and Enron."

On former Senator Phil Gramm's habit of hogging the spotlight:

"If you want a lesson in political anonymity, sponsor a bill with Phil Gramm."

On international trade:

"We hear those in the national Congress running around and saying, 'Free trade, free trade, I am for free trade,' when they know free trade is like dry water. There is no such thing."

On the media:

“John Dewey, the educator said, no, no, let the free press report the truth to the American people and the needs will be reflected, to the congressmen and senators in Washington. And he was right. But they’re not telling the truth anymore. They all were doing the headlines rather than headway. They’re all getting by with perceptions; they’re all getting by with pollster politics. They’re not talking about the needs.”

Further info

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 was the senior senator from South Carolina for only the last 2 years of his Senate service while serving alongside Lindsey Graham.