Fred Harris, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, presidential hopeful and populist who championed Democratic Occasion reforms within the turbulent Sixties, died Saturday. He was 94.
Harris’ spouse, Margaret Elliston, confirmed his loss of life to The Related Press. It was not instantly clear the place he died, however he had lived in New Mexico since 1976 and was a resident of Corrales on the time of his loss of life.
“Fred Harris handed peacefully early this morning of pure causes. He was 94. He was a beautiful and beloved man. His reminiscence is a blessing,” Elliston mentioned in a textual content message.
Harris served eight years within the Senate, first profitable in 1964 to fill a emptiness, and made unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1976.
It fell to Harris, as chairman of the Democratic Nationwide Committee in 1969 and 1970, to assist heal the social gathering’s wounds from the tumultuous nationwide conference in 1968 when protesters and police clashed in Chicago.
He ushered in rule modifications that led to extra girls and minorities as conference delegates and in management positions.
“I believe it’s labored splendidly,” Harris recalled in 2004, when he was a delegate to the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Boston. “It’s made the choice rather more authentic and democratic.”
“The Democratic Occasion was not democratic, and lots of the delegations had been just about boss-controlled or -dominated. And within the South, there was horrible discrimination in opposition to African Individuals,” he mentioned.
Harris ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, quitting after poor showings in early contests, together with a fourth-place win in New Hampshire. The extra average Jimmy Carter went on to win the presidency.
Harris moved to New Mexico that yr and have become a political science professor on the College of New Mexico. He wrote and edited greater than a dozen books, totally on politics and Congress. In 1999 he broadened his writings with a thriller set in Melancholy-era Oklahoma.
All through his political profession, Harris was a number one liberal voice for civil rights and anti-poverty applications to assist minorities and the deprived.
“Democrats all over the place will bear in mind Fred for his unparalleled integrity and as a pioneer for instituting core progressive values of fairness and alternative for prosperity as core tenets of our social gathering,” the Democratic Occasion of New Mexico mentioned in a press release.
Alongside together with his first spouse, LaDonna, a Comanche, he additionally was energetic in Native American points.
“I’ve all the time referred to as myself a populist or progressive,” Harris mentioned in a 1998 interview. “I’m in opposition to concentrated energy. I don’t like the facility of cash in politics. I believe we must have applications for the center class and dealing class.”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham praised his work for his or her shared state and the nation.
“Along with being a extremely achieved politician and professor, he was a good, honorable man who handled everybody with heat, generosity, and good humor,” she mentioned in a press release. “Sen. Harris was a lesson in management that public officers could be clever to emulate now and ceaselessly.”
Harris was a member of the Nationwide Advisory Fee on Civil Issues, the so-called Kerner Fee, appointed by then-President Lyndon Johnson to research the city riots of the late Sixties.
The fee’s groundbreaking report in 1968 declared, “our nation is shifting towards two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”
Thirty years later, Harris co-wrote a report that concluded the fee’s “prophecy has come to go.”
“The wealthy are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and minorities are struggling disproportionately,” mentioned the report by Harris and Lynn A. Curtis, president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Basis, which continued the work of the fee.
Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute mentioned Harris rose to prominence in Congress as a “fiery populist.”
“That resonates with folks … the notion of the typical individual in opposition to the elite,” Ornstein mentioned. “Fred Harris had an actual skill to articulate these considerations, notably of the downtrodden.”
In 1968, Harris served as co-chairman of the presidential marketing campaign of then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He and others pressed Humphrey to make use of the conference to interrupt with Johnson on the Vietnam Warfare. However Humphrey waited to take action till late within the marketing campaign, and narrowly misplaced to Republican Richard Nixon.
“That was the worst yr of my life, ’68. We had Dr. Martin Luther King killed. We had my Senate seatmate Robert Kennedy killed after which we had this horrible conference,” Harris mentioned in 1996.
“I left the conference — due to the horrible issues and the best way they’d been dealt with and the failure to undertake a brand new peace platform — actually downhearted.”
After assuming the Democratic Occasion management publish, Harris appointed commissions that really useful reforms within the procedures for choosing delegates and presidential nominees. Whereas lauding the better openness and variety, he mentioned there had been a facet impact: “It’s a lot to the great. However the one results of it’s that conventions right now are ratifying conventions. So it’s onerous to make them fascinating.”
“My very own thought is that they must be shortened to a few days. However they’re nonetheless value having, I believe, as a strategy to undertake a platform, as a form of pep rally, as a strategy to get folks collectively in a form of coalition-building,” he mentioned.
Harris was born Nov. 13, 1930, in a two-room farmhouse close to Walters, in southwestern Oklahoma, about 15 miles from the Texas line. The house had no electrical energy, indoor rest room or working water.
At age 5 he was engaged on the farm and obtained 10 cents a day to drive a horse in circles to provide energy for a hay bailer.
He labored part-time as a janitor and printer’s assistant to assist for his training at College of Oklahoma. He earned a bachelor’s diploma in 1952, majoring in political science and historical past. He obtained a legislation diploma from the College of Oklahoma in 1954, after which moved to Lawton to follow.
In 1956, he gained election to the Oklahoma state Senate and served for eight years. In 1964, he launched his profession in nationwide politics within the race to switch Sen. Robert S. Kerr, who died in January 1963.
Harris gained the Democratic nomination in a runoff election in opposition to J. Howard Edmondson, who left the governorship to fill Kerr’s emptiness till the subsequent election. Within the normal election, Harris defeated an Oklahoma sports activities legend — Charles “Bud” Wilkinson, who had coached OU soccer for 17 years.
Harris gained a six-year time period in 1966 however left the Senate in 1972 when there have been doubts that he, as a left-leaning Democrat, may win reelection.
Harris married his highschool sweetheart, LaDonna Vita Crawford, in 1949, and had three kids, Kathryn, Byron and Laura. After the couple divorced, Harris married Margaret Elliston in 1983. An entire checklist of survivors was not instantly accessible Saturday.
