Death of the former US Senator & # 39; Fritz & # 39; Hollings of South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, the silver-haired democrat who helped the pastor govern South Carolina through desegregation as governor and served six terms in the US Senate, has passed away. He was 97 years old.

Family spokesman Andy Brack, who has occasionally served as spokesperson for Hollings during his Senate career, said Hollings had died early Saturday.

Hollings, whose long and colorful political career included an unsuccessful Democratic nomination for the presidency, retired from the Senate in 2005, one of the last larger-than-life Democrats to have dominated politics. from South.

He had served for 38 years and two months, making him the eighth-oldest senator in US history.

Nevertheless, Hollings remained the youngest senator in South Carolina for most of his term. The oldest senator was Strom Thurmond, elected for the first time in 1954. He retired in January 2003 at the age of 100 as the oldest serving senator in history.

THE REPUBLICANS OF THE SENATE ADOPT A CHANGE IN PROCEDURE FOR THE RAPID CONFIRMATION OF TRUMP JUDICIAL CHIPS

In his last speech to the Senate in 2004, Hollings lamented that lawmakers spend a great deal of their time raising money for the next election, calling it "the main culprit, cancer of the body politic".

"We do not have time for the other, we do not have time for voters, with the exception of the donors … We are in real trouble."

Hollings was a bitter speaker whose rhetoric flourished in the deepest focus of his home country animated many debates in Washington, but his influence in Washington never reached the level that it was. He hoped.

He sometimes blamed this failure on his past, taking power as he did in the South in the 1950s, when the region was seething with segregation.

However, South Carolina largely avoided the racial violence that afflicted some other deep South states during the turbulent 1960s.

Hollings campaigned against desegregation when he ran for governorship in 1958. He built a national reputation as a moderate when, in his farewell speech, he pleaded with the legislature to She peacefully accepts the integration of public schools and the admission of the first black student to Clemson. University.

"This General Assembly must spell out the choice of South Carolina, a government of laws rather than a government of men," he told lawmakers. Shortly after, Clemson was peacefully integrated.

In his 2008 autobiography, "Making Government Work," Hollings wrote that in the 1950s, "no problem dominated South Carolina more than race" and that he worked for a balanced approach.

"I was" Mr.-in-between, the governor had to seem to be in charge, yet the realities were not on his side, "he writes. "I came back to my basic precept (…) the supreme law is the safety of people, I was determined to keep the peace and to avoid bloodshed."

In the Senate, Hollings has carved out a reputation as a skilled insider with powerful intellectual powers. He chaired the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and sat on the Supply and Budget Committees.

But his sharp tongue and brighter mind sometimes caused him trouble. He once called on Senator Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, the "Senator of B & B" and, in 1983, called the "supporters of the presidential campaign of the former senator Alan Cranston, D-California ".

Hollings began his quest for the presidency in April 1983, but dropped out the following March, after sad results in Iowa and New Hampshire.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS CO-SPONSORING BILL ALLOWING DREAMS TO BE INTERNET OF CAPITOL HILL

Early in his Senate career, he built a hawk record and lobbied for military dollars for South Carolina, one of the union's poorest states.

Hollings had initially supported the US involvement in Vietnam, but his views changed over the years, when it became apparent that there would be no US victory.

Hollings, who has made three trips to the war zone, said that he had learned a lesson there.

"It's a mistake to try to build and destroy a nation at the same time," he writes in his autobiography, warning that the United States "is now repeating the same misplaced strategy in Iraq."

Despite his change of perspective, Hollings remains a strong advocate of national defense, which he sees as the government's main activity.

In 1969, he attracted the country's attention when he exposed hunger in his own state by traveling through several cities, thus helping to lay the foundation for the feeding program for women, infants and children. , or WIC.

A year later, his opinions aroused greater interest with the publication of his first book "The Case Against Hunger".

In 1982, Hollings proposed a general freeze on federal spending to reduce the deficit, a proposal that was the cornerstone of his failed bid for the presidency.

He contributed to the creation of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration and the drafting of the National Coastal Zone Management Act. Hollings also gave his name to the Gramm-Rudman bill to balance the federal budget.

Hollings angered many of his constituents in 1991 when he opposed the congressional resolution authorizing President George Bush to use force against Iraq.

In his later years, port security was one of his main concerns.

While he was about to leave office, he told The Associated Press: "People are asking you for your most embarrassing legacy or moment. this way … I do not try to remember. "

It was busy after the Senate helped the South Carolina Medical University raise money for the cancer center that bears his name and lectured at the new Charleston Law School.

Hollings' political defeat came in 1962, when he was eliminated in a primary by Senator Olin Johnston. After Johnston's death, Hollings won a special election in 1966 and ran in the Senate at the age of 44. He won the first of six full terms two years later.

Ernest Frederick Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 1, 1922. His father was a paper merchant but the family business went bankrupt during the Depression.

Hollings graduated from the Citadel, the state military college in Charleston, in 1942. He immediately entered the army and was decorated for his service during the Second World War. Back home, he earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina in 1947.

The following year, he was elected to the State House at 26 years old. He was elected lieutenant governor six years later and governor in 1958 at age 36.

As governor, he has actively attracted business, helped balance the budget for the first time since reconstruction, and improved public education.