26 Facts About Floyd Spence

Floyd Davidson Spence was an American attorney and a politician from the US state of South Carolina.

Floyd Spence lost a contested seat that year for United States Representative from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district to Democrat Albert W Watson, who had the support of powerful senator Strom Thurmond.

That year Floyd Spence won the congressional seat, and was re-elected for fourteen terms after this.

Floyd Spence became ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee in 1993 and chairman in 1995.

Floyd Spence died in office from cerebral thrombosis in Washington, DC, in 2001.

Floyd Spence graduated in 1952 from the University of South Carolina in Columbia with a degree in English.

Floyd Spence was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1956 as a Democrat from Lexington County.

Floyd Spence was reelected in 1958 and 1960, but on April 14,1962, Spence announced that he was switching to the Republican Party, having become uncomfortable with the national Democrats' increasingly liberal platform.

Floyd Spence opposed a loyalty oath required by South Carolina Democrats.

Floyd Spence had been urged by several friends to run before his switch, especially after the death of the previous congressman, John J Riley, but declined to do so.

In 1966, Floyd Spence was elected to the South Carolina Senate; he became the minority leader of a six-member caucus.

In 1970, Floyd Spence ran for the 2nd congressional district seat again.

Floyd Spence was defeated by the Democratic lieutenant governor, John C West.

Floyd Spence won a narrow victory, becoming the first freshman Republican congressman elected from South Carolina since 1896; he was the second Republican to be elected from the state since Reconstruction.

Floyd Spence was unopposed for reelection in the Nixon-Agnew landslide of 1972 and reelected fourteen times thereafter.

In 1974, Spence defeated challenger Matthew J Perry, an African-American Democrat who had made his reputation in civil rights cases.

Floyd Spence faced another tough campaign in 1988, but did not face major-party opposition again until 1998.

In 1993, Floyd Spence became the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, having been a member of the panel since his first term.

Floyd Spence became the committee's chairman in 1995 after the Republicans under Newt Gingrich of Georgia gained their first majority in the House in forty years.

Floyd Spence renamed the House Armed Services Committee the "Committee on National Security" when he took over as chairman.

Floyd Spence stepped down as chairman after the 106th Congress because of caucus-imposed term limits.

Floyd Spence later served as chairman of the House subcommittee on military procurement.

Floyd Spence married his first wife, Lula Hancock Drake, on December 22,1952.

Floyd Spence died in Washington, DC, on August 16,2001, at the age of seventy-three, from complications following brain surgery.

Floyd Spence had been admitted to St Dominic Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, three weeks earlier for testing and treatment for nerve pain in his face.

Floyd Spence was buried at the Saint Peters Lutheran Church Cemetery in Lexington, South Carolina.