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

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 chaired 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, allowing Harris to choose; he eventually used his mother's preferred name, Roy.

Harris attended the University of Oklahoma (OU) on a scholarship, graduating in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in history and political science.

United States Senator

thumb|left|Campaign postcard featuring Harris and his wife [[LaDonna Harris|LaDonna, 1964]]

In 1964, Harris ran to serve the remainder of the Senate term of Robert S. Kerr, who had died in office. With Kerr's family's support, he defeated former governor J. Howard Edmondson, who had appointed himself to succeed Kerr, in the Democratic primary. Harris defeated Wilkinson by 21,390 votes, [https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/elections/election-results/results-prior-to-1980/1958-1966-results.pdf] becoming one of the youngest members of the U.S. Senate. At 33 years old, he was the youngest senator-elect in Oklahoma history.

thumb|right|Harris 1965

Harris firmly supported President Johnson's Great Society programs, which were often unpopular in Oklahoma. 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; 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 vote on the motion to end the filibuster conducted by senators who opposed the 1968 Act, and voted to end the filibuster so that the Act could be voted on.

Despite being quite liberal in an increasingly conservative state, Harris was reelected to a full term in 1966, defeating attorney Pat J. Patterson by 47,572 votes.[https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/elections/election-results/results-prior-to-1980/1958-1966-results.pdf] 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. 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. 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 bipartisan alliance with President Richard Nixon, with whom Harris sharply disagreed on numerous other issues, notably the Vietnam War. In doing so, he had to overcome powerful fellow Democratic Senators Clinton Anderson and Henry M. Jackson, who firmly opposed returning the land. As recounted by Harris's 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 confirming 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 and J. William Fulbright were the only two Southern senators to vote not to confirm Justice William Rehnquist.

Harris called for the abolition of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The New Populism

In 1973, Harris published The New Populism, a book that articulates a political philosophy centered on economic decentralization and skepticism toward concentrated power in both the public and private sectors. He criticized the size and influence of major institutions, including government agencies, corporations, and labor unions. Among his policy proposals were eliminating subsidies for affluent students and wealthy farmers, a negative income tax and a land value tax, and creating a modern Homestead Act. Harris advocated employee ownership of corporations, tax reform to close loopholes benefiting high earners, and stronger antitrust enforcement to dismantle large companies and promote competition. He also called for public ownership of monopolies in sectors lacking competition and proposed bringing the Federal Reserve under full public ownership. Additionally, Harris was critical of regulatory bodies such as the Interstate Commerce Commission and Civil Aeronautics Board, which he viewed as serving entrenched interests rather than the public good.

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 also supported abortion rights, desegregation busing, and disbanding the Central Intelligence Agency. 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. He suspended his campaign on April 8, 1976. The next year, he and his wife attended the 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of the Democratic ticket. His last book, a memoir titled Report from a Last Survivor, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in September 2024.

Personal life and death

Harris married LaDonna Harris, born LaDonna Crawford, in 1949, and they had three children. They divorced in 1981, and he married Margaret Elliston the next year.

References

  • 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

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