Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings (born January 1, 1922) was a Democratic United States Senator from South Carolina. Hollings was elected to the Senate in 1966. He did not seek re-election in 2004, and his term as a senator expired January 3, 2005.

Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He went to The Citadel and received a B.A. in 1942; he later attended the University of South Carolina and received a LL.B. in 1947. He is married to Rita "Peatsy" Liddy and has four children. He is a Lutheran.

Hollings served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. He was first elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1948; he was subsequently elected lieutenant governor of the state in 1955 and Governor in 1958. He was governor from 1959 until 1963. He sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962, but lost to Olin D. Johnston .

Johnston died on April 18, 1965, however, and Hollings was elected to fill his Senate seat in an early election. He was subsequently elected to a full 6-year term in 1968 and served for six full terms.

He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the presidential election of 1984.

On August 4, 2003, he announced that he would not run for re-election in November 2004.

As a senator, Hollings was noted for his support for legislation that was in the interests of the established media distribution industry (such as the proposed "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act") and was described by opponents as the 'Senator from Disney'. Hollings also sponsored the Online Personal Privacy Act (S. 2201).

Hollings was generally considered to be a liberal supportive of many civil rights bills. He was the only southern senator not to vote against re-authorizing the Voting Rights Act in 1982.

Hollings penned a controversial editorial in the May 6, 2004 Charleston Post and Courier, where he argued that Bush invaded Iraq because "spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats."

External links

• Senator Hollings' web page
• 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 editorial critical of Bush policy