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Last Updated June 22, 2005
Lindsey Graham, first elected to the House in 1994 and the Senate in 2002, is South Carolina's senior senator; Graham reached in two years a position it took his former colleague Ernest Hollings 36 years to reach. Graham grew up in Pickens County, where his parents owned a beer joint. His parents died after he went to college at the University of South Carolina; he became his younger sister's legal guardian. He was the first in his family to graduate from college, then received a master's and a law degree from the University of South Carolina, and then served in the Air Force as a prosecutor in Germany, Crete and other distant locales. In 1988 he returned home and practiced law in Seneca, the same town where former Senator John Edwards grew up; they were born in the same hospital two years apart. Graham also served as a judge advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Base. He was called up to active duty and served stateside during the Gulf War. In 1992 he was elected to the state House. In 1994, with the retirement of 20-year Congressman Butler Derrick, Graham ran for the House. Both parties had contested primaries, but the Republican contest attracted more votes--41,000 versus 35,000--and Graham won without a runoff with 52% of the vote. In the general he faced state Senator Jim Bryan. Graham called for term limits, supported more defense spending and opposed gays in the military. His attitude toward the Clinton administration and the Democratic leadership was unequivocal: "I'm one less vote for an agenda that makes you want to throw up." Graham won 60%-40%--a smashing victory in a district represented only by Democrats since Reconstruction. In the House Graham had a solidly conservative voting record but did not always support the Republican leadership. In July 1997 he helped organize the fight to overthrow Speaker Newt Gingrich. This coup soon foundered, and in a Republican Conference meeting, when Dick Armey said no member of the leadership was involved, Graham lunged to the microphone to contradict him. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Graham played a major role in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. When Clinton defenders quibbled about the meaning of words and insisted that Clinton's deposition testimony was "legally accurate," Graham exploded in opposition. He was especially upset at the way Clinton used the official powers of the White House to discredit Monica Lewinsky. Yet he voted against impeaching Clinton for lying in the Paula Jones deposition, on the ground that it was later ruled immaterial by the judge. In the Senate trial Graham's folksy manner and clear description of Clinton's offenses--"Where I come from, a man who calls someone up at 2:30 in the morning is up to no good"--made him one of the most effective managers. He defied most South Carolina Republican leaders and supported John McCain in 2000 and was a tireless and highly visible supporter all over South Carolina. Senator Strom Thurmond, reelected to his eighth term in 1996 one month before he turned 94, promised not to run again in 2002. It is not often that a Senate seat comes open in South Carolina; the last one before this was in 1941 (Thurmond and Ernest Hollings both won their seats by beating incumbent senators appointed to fill vacancies). Yet in this now heavily Republican state Graham had no opposition in the Republican primary: his work on impeachment and in the McCain campaign made him well known and well liked statewide. He was endorsed by three former governors and Bob Dole; Strom Thurmond added his endorsement in November 2001. Democrats portrayed him as lacking in substance, and state Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian said on the day Graham announced in February 2001 that he was "light in the loafers"; Graham accused him of slander since the phrase is sometimes used as a pejorative reference to homosexuality. Harpootlian denied any such imputation. But for all their bravado, state and national Democrats had a hard time coming up with a candidate. Finally they found a candidate, and an attractive one at that, Alex Sanders, president of the College of Charleston, with a colorful resume. Sanders ran off as a teenager and joined the circus, and was briefly a juggler and fire eater; in 1966 he was elected to the state House, in 1974 he lost a race for lieutenant governor, in 1976 he was elected to the state Senate, in 1985 he was appointed to the state Court of Appeals and in 1992 he was named college president. Sanders was also a folksy raconteur, gifted at telling hundreds of old stories, charming and well connected around the state. Sanders was an active and energetic candidate. He dialed assiduously for dollars, even as he complained about being handed a script, and raised eventually $4.2 million, below Graham's $5.8 million, but a considerable achievement for a candidate who was always behind in the polls. He supported the Bush tax cuts (though he said he was for more tax cuts only to create jobs) and military action in Iraq. But he opposed the death penalty, on religious grounds. And he opposed a constitutional amendment to allow criminalization of flag burning. Graham hammered him on the death penalty and the flag amendment but most of all on his party. He said Sanders would advance the liberal agenda of Tom Daschle, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy, and pointed to his contributions from Democratic celebrities. "Barbra Streisand, great singer, very liberal. My opponent is a nice guy, but he's getting Democratic support out the ying-yang." Democratic ads hit Graham for supporting individual investment accounts in Social Security. Graham stood his ground and argued that the system would be broke by 2040, when many of today's voters would be about to retire. In one of their four debates Sanders, perhaps weary of being attacked for associating with glamorous liberals, said of Graham's endorsement by Rudolph Giuliani, "He's an ultraliberal. His wife kicked him out and he moved in with two gay men and a Shih Tzu. Is that South Carolina values? I don't think so." But Sanders was put on the defensive by his own comment that South Carolinians could prove they were not racists by voting for him. Trying to explain, he said, "When I said I would show America that we are not ignorant, racist, redneck Dixiecrats, I was referring to the false stereotype many people in the North have of us in South Carolina. None of these terms are applicable to Senator Thurmond, and I most certainly was not referring to him." Graham won 54%-44%, about the margin one might have projected from the polls. So Graham took the place of a senator first elected in the year before he was born. He has had a mostly conservative voting record but has disagreed with the Bush administration on important issues. He voted against the Medicare/prescription drug bill in June and November 2003 and in March 2005 called for annual ceilings on the program's costs. He called the medical malpractice bill "one of the worst pieces of legislation I have ever seen." He voted against it in July 2003 and February 2004 when Republicans tried to limit debate and failed. "I believe my vote not to let the federal government take over the South Carolina legal system was the right thing to do for the state as a whole." He and Richard Durbin sponsored a bill to ban punitive damages on doctors participating in Medicare and Medicaid. But he supported the class action bill that passed in February 2005 and co-sponsored a bill requiring that the losing party pays the other side's legal fees in lawsuits between parties from different states. In March 2005 he proposed a federal law shielding reporters from having to disclose their sources in court. Graham has not always been a party loyalist. Dismayed by federal deficits, he said in December 2003, "Are we the party of fiscal responsibility that we advertise ourselves to be? No. We're using the war as an excuse, overly, I think." With Hillary Rodham Clinton he co-sponsored a bill to expand health care provision for Reservists and National Guard troops. With Tom Daschle he cosponsored a bill to provide ordinary health insurance to reservists. Graham has called for quotas on clothing imports from China and called for more aggressive trade policies toward countries that dump textiles. He co-sponsored a bill in 2003 to impose a 27.5% tariff on goods from China if it does not delink its currency from the dollar. Graham voted for the Iraq war resolution and generally backed the war. But in November 2003 he said that half of the $20 billion for reconstruction there should be loans, not grants. And, drawing on his experience as a military lawyer and the fact that he was the only senator serving in the Guard or Reserves, he aggressively investigated the Abu Ghraib abuses and sought to learn if higher officers shared responsibility. In the House Graham and Mark Sanford sponsored a bill allowing workers to divert two-thirds of their payroll tax to personal retirement accounts. He talked about Social Security's impending fiscal problems and called for changes in his 2002 campaign. In November 2003 he unveiled his own plan: 4% of the payroll tax could go to personal retirement accounts, up to $1,300, with transition costs to come from cuts in government spending. At the Heritage Foundation in December 2004 he said any change in Social Security would require "some sacrifice." He again proposed 4% personal retirement accounts, with higher taxes for workers who do not choose them; he would also raise the income limit subject to the payroll tax. This was sharply criticized by some conservatives, but Graham persisted. He participated in private meetings with both Democratic and Republican senators, and he insisted that raising the payroll tax limit was necessary if a plan was to get Democratic support. In February 2005 he said he would hold off introducing a bill until there was a "solution mix." On local issues, in August 2003 Graham withdrew his support for a second Catawba tribe bingo hall off I-95 after Governor Mark Sanford opposed it. In June 2004 he put into the defense authorization a provision allowing the Savannah River Site to reclassify nuclear waste; he said this would allow the waste to be disposed of more quickly and cheaply. It survived Maria Cantwell's attempt to delete it by a 48-48 vote. In February 2005, after a fatal railroad accident in South Carolina, he sponsored a rail safety bill to increase fines, require a one-year review of all rail lines and a review of all 250,000 rail crossings, with rankings of the 10,000 most in need of improvement. Graham does not come up for reelection until 2008 and seems to be in good political shape at home. "In my state we change senators about every 50 years. So if I don't screw up too badly, I'm probably going to be around for a while. And I can take the long view of things." In February 2005 Dick Harpootlian, impressed by Graham's independence, sent him a $2,000 contribution. "It means a lot to me that people think I'm trying to be fair and represent everyone in South Carolina," Graham said. "As to the check, there's no way I'm cashing that baby. I'm framing it."
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