page_title: Fritz Hollings
section_title: Early Senate career
hierarchical_section_title: Fritz Hollings / Political career / United States Senator / Early Senate career
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Senator Ernest Hollings
context_page_description: Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from South Carolina from 1966 to 2005. A conservative Democrat, he was also the Governor of South Carolina and the 77th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. He served alongside Democrat turned Republican Senator Strom Thurmond for 36 years, making them the longest-serving Senate duo in history. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living former U.S. Senator.
  Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Hollings graduated from The Citadel in 1942 and joined a law practice in Charleston after attending the University of South Carolina School of Law. During World War II, he served as an artillery officer in campaigns in North Africa and Europe. After the war, Hollings successively won election to the South Carolina House of Representatives, as Lieutenant Governor, and as Governor. He sought election to the Senate in 1962 but was defeated by incumbent Olin D. Johnston.
  Johnston died in 1965, and the following year Hollings won a special election to serve the remainder of Johnston's term.
context_section_description: 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 in this instance 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 in the history of the United States to date. This also made Hollings the longest-serving junior senator, 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. Hollings made headlines the year before when he toured poverty-stricken areas of South Carolina, often referred to as his "Hunger Tours." 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." 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." In February 1969, however, 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." 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.
  Hollings and his first wife separated in 1970 and divorced in 1971. Their children lived with their mother, and Hollings never discussed the reason for the divorce. Later that year, he married Rita Liddy "Peatsy" Hollings (born 1935), who was 13 years his junior. She had joined his administrative staff in 1967. It was her first and his second marriage. They were married 41 years until her death in 2012.
  In the 1970s, Hollings joined with fellow senators Kennedy and Henry M. Jackson in a press conf
caption: Hollings in 1969
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