Fred R. Harris

For other people named Fred Harris, see Fred Harris.

Fred R. Harris
Harris in the United States Senate, 1968
32nd Chair of the Democratic National Committee
In office January 14, 1969 – March 5, 1970
Preceded by	Larry O'Brien
Succeeded by	Larry O'Brien
United States Senator from Oklahoma
In office November 4, 1964 – January 3, 1973
Preceded by	J. Howard Edmondson
Succeeded by	Dewey F. Bartlett
Member of the Oklahoma Senate from the 17th district
In office 1957–1964
Preceded by	Bill Logan
Succeeded by	Ralph W. Graves
Personal details
Born	(1930-11-13)November 13, 1930 Cotton County, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	November 23, 2024(2024-11-23) (aged 94) Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	LaDonna Crawford ​ ​ (m. 1949; div. 1981)​ Margaret Elliston ​ (m. 1982)​
Children	3
Education	University of Oklahoma (BA, LLB)

Fred Roy Harris (November 13, 1930 – November 23, 2024) was an American politician from Oklahoma who served as a member of the Oklahoma Senate from 1957 to 1964 and a member of the United States Senate from 1964 to 1973.

Harris was elected to the Oklahoma Senate after graduating from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He ousted the appointed U.S. Senate incumbent J. Howard Edmondson and won a 1964 special election to finish Robert S. Kerr's term, narrowly defeating football coach Bud Wilkinson. Harris strongly supported the Great Society programs and criticized President Lyndon B. Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. He was reelected in 1966 and declined to seek another term in 1972.

From 1969 to 1970, Harris served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In the 1968 presidential election, Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey strongly considered him as his running mate. Harris unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976. After 1976, he was a professor at the University of New Mexico.

Early life

Harris was born on November 13, 1930, in Cotton County, Oklahoma, near Walters, Oklahoma, the son of Eunice Alene (Pearson) and Fred Byron Harris, a sharecropper. His parents disagreed on whether his middle name should be "Ray" or "Roy", and his handwritten birth certificate was ambiguous on this front, allowing Harris to choose; he eventually used his mother's preferred name of Roy.

Harris attended the University of Oklahoma (OU) on a scholarship, graduating in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in history and political science. He then entered the OU law school, where he was administrative assistant to the dean and successively book editor and managing editor of the Law Review. The issue of August 1956, contained his first published article. He received the LL B. degree with distinction and was admitted to the bar in 1954.

He was elected to the Oklahoma Senate in 1956 and served in it until 1964. For most of the time, he was one of its youngest members. During his tenure he introduced legislation to prohibit race discrimination in state employment. He made an unsuccessful bid for governor of Oklahoma in 1962, which made him better known throughout the state.

United States Senate

In 1964, Harris ran to finish the unexpired term of U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr, who had died in office. With the backing of Kerr's family, he defeated former governor J. Howard Edmondson, who had appointed himself to succeed Kerr, in the Democratic primary. The general election was a high-profile campaign against the Republican nominee, legendary Oklahoma Sooners football coach Bud Wilkinson. Both parties invited political leaders from out of state to campaign for their candidates. Republicans brought former Vice President Richard Nixon to campaign for Wilkinson, while Harris hosted President Lyndon B. Johnson and First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. Harris defeated Wilkinson, 51% to 49%, becoming one of the youngest members of the U.S. Senate. Harris, then only 33 years old, was the youngest senator-elect in Oklahoma history. His Senate career began on November 4, 1964.

Harris was a firm supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs, which were often unpopular in Oklahoma. He voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and while he missed the votes pertaining to the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 (he was away on official Senate business) and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (he was absent because of illness), he supported both votes; it was announced on the Senate floor that, if he had been present, he would have voted for Marshall's confirmation and the 1968 Act. Harris was present for the important vote on the motion to end the filibuster conducted by those senators who opposed the 1968 Act, and voted to end the filibuster so that the Act could finally be voted on.

In July 1967, Johnson appointed Harris to the Kerner Commission. He quickly became one of its most active members and was deeply concerned about economically deprived Black urban residents. He also strongly supported agricultural programs, the Arkansas River Navigation Program, and the Indian health programs, which were all very popular in Oklahoma.

Despite being strongly liberal in an increasingly conservative state, Harris was elected to a full term in 1966, defeating attorney Pat J. Patterson, 54% to 46%. Patterson had tried to unseat Harris by announcing his support for a constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Everett Dirksen to allow school boards to provide for prayers in public schools. Dirksen's amendment had enthusiastic political support in Oklahoma, but Harris opposed it in a public letter: "I believe in the separation of church and state and I believe prayer and Bible reading should be voluntary".

During his Senate term, Harris served briefly as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, preceded and succeeded in that position by Larry O'Brien. Harris was one of the final two candidates considered by Vice President and presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey to be the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1968; Humphrey chose U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine because of Harris's young age of 37. According to O'Brien, Humphrey vacillated between the two until finally choosing Muskie at the last minute. Harris broke with Johnson and Humphrey over the Vietnam War.

In 1970, Harris was a major player in the successful legislation to restore to the inhabitants of the Taos Pueblo 48,000 ac (19,425 ha) of mountain land that had been taken by President Theodore Roosevelt and designated as the Carson National Forest early in the 20th century. The struggle was particularly emotive since this return of Taos land included Blue Lake, which the Pueblo consider sacred. To pass the bill, Harris forged a bipartisanship alliance with President Richard Nixon, from whom Harris was sharply divided on numerous other issues, notably the Vietnam War. In doing so, he had to overcome powerful fellow Democratic Senators Clinton Anderson of New Mexico and Henry M. Jackson of Washington, who firmly opposed returning the land. As recounted by Harris' (now-ex) wife, LaDonna, who was actively involved in the struggle, when the bill finally passed and came up to be signed by the president, Nixon looked up and said, "I can't believe I'm signing a bill that was sponsored by Fred Harris."

In 1971, Harris was the only senator to vote against confirmation of Lewis F. Powell Jr. as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He opposed Powell because he considered him elitist and to have a weak record on civil rights.

Harris called for the abolition of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Presidential campaigns

Harris did not seek another Senate term in 1972 and instead ran for president, but failed to attract support and ended his campaign after only 48 days. He ran again four years later; both of his campaigns were populist and centered on what he called "economic democracy". He also supported abortion rights, desegregation busing, and disbanding the Central Intelligence Agency. To keep expenses down, he traveled the country in a recreational vehicle and stayed in private homes, giving his hosts a card redeemable for one night's stay in the White House upon his election. He emphasized issues affecting Native Americans and the working class. His interest in Native American rights was linked to his ancestry and that of his first wife, LaDonna Harris a Comanche who was deeply involved in Native American activism.

After a surprising fourth-place finish in the 1976 Iowa caucuses, Harris coined the term "winnowed in" by saying, "The winnowing-out process has begun and we have just been 'winnowed in'." He won more than 10% of the vote, pushing Mo Udall, who at one point led the polls, into fifth place. Harris was "winnowed out" just over a month later. He finished fourth in the New Hampshire primary and, a week later, third in Vermont and fifth in Massachusetts. Harris remained in the contest for another month, with his best showing a fourth-place finish in Illinois, with 8%. He suspended his campaign on April 8, 1976.

Later life

Harris at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2018.

Harris left electoral politics for academia after 1976. He became a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico and wrote many books on political subjects, including Potomac Fever (Norton, 1977 ISBN 0-393-05610-4) and Deadlock or Decision: The U.S. Senate and the Rise of National Politics (Oxford University, 1993 ISBN 0-19-508025-4). In 2003, Harris was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board. He also authored three novels. He resided in Corrales, New Mexico.

Harris remained active well into his final years. In a 2023 interview, he expressed support for President Joe Biden, saying concerns over the president's age were unfounded, and strongly criticized former President Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the consequent January 6 United States Capitol attack. The following year, he and his wife attended the 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of the Democratic ticket. His last book, a memoir entitled Report from a Last Survivor, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in September 2024.

Personal life and death

Harris first married LaDonna Harris, who was LaDonna Crawford, in 1949, and they had three children. They divorced in 1981, and he married Margaret Elliston the following year.

Harris died at a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on November 23, 2024, ten days after his 94th birthday. He was the last living former U.S. senator who left office in the 1970s.

External links

• United States Congress. "Fred R. Harris (id: H000237)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Fred R. Harris at IMDb
• Oklahoma State University – Digital Library_Chronicles of Oklahoma – Fred Harris
• Fred R. Harris Collection and Photographs Series at the Carl Albert Center
• Voices of Oklahoma interview with Fred Harris. First person interview conducted on April 26, 2012, with Fred Harris.
• Interview with Senator Fred Harris by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, July 1, 2010
• Appearances on C-SPAN