Hollings, Ernest Frederick (1922-2019), was a member of the United States Senate from 1966 to 2005. Hollings, a Democrat, represented South Carolina.
Issues involving money were a top concern of Hollings’s during his career in the Senate. In 1985, Hollings was a sponsor of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill to cut the federal budget deficit. He favored eliminating the federal income tax and replacing it with a value-added tax on consumer goods. He supported legislation to limit spending on political campaigns.
Hollings, often called by the nickname Fritz, was born on Jan. 1, 1922, in Charleston, South Carolina. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the Citadel in 1942. From 1942 to 1945, during World War II, he served in the U.S. Army. As a member of an antiaircraft artillery unit, he fought in Europe and Africa. Hollings earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina in 1947 and began working as a lawyer in Charleston.
In 1948, Hollings was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. He was reelected in 1950 and 1952. In 1954, he was elected lieutenant governor of South Carolina. He was elected governor in 1958 and served from 1959 to 1963. While he was governor, he also served on several federal commissions to which he was appointed by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
In 1966, Hollings was elected to the U.S. Senate to finish the term of Senator Olin D. Johnston, who had died. In 1968, Hollings was elected to his first full six-year term. He was later reelected five times. In 2003, Hollings announced that he would not seek another term in the Senate. He retired from public office when his final term ended in January 2005. Hollings died on April 6, 2019.
