Elizabeth J. Patterson

Elizabeth Johnston “Liz” Patterson (November 18, 1939 – November 10, 2018) was a Democrat from South Carolina who served as the state's U.S. representative from the fourth congressional district for three terms in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She was previously a state senator from 1980 to 1987.

Patterson is the daughter of liberal Democrat segregationist Olin D. Johnston, who was infamous for refusing to grant clemency as governor to 14 year-old George Stinney, an African-American teenager wrongfully accused and convicted of murdering two white girls in a case with no evidence to back the prosecution.

U.S. House of Representatives

Patterson ran for the House in the 1986 Midterm Elections, facing Republican Bill Workman in the general election. Campaigning on a mostly moderate platform which included advocating for fiscal conservatism though liberal on abortion, she narrowly won by four percentage points. Years later in a 2017 interview, she reflected:

“

We did a poll, first of all, to see if I had a chance. And the poll said that people still remembered my dad. That a certain age remembered my dad and what he did, and that they would support me because of that.

”

Johnston attempted to bring back the white primary after the United States Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional in Smith v. Allwright. He won election to the U.S. Senate in 1944 by boasting himself as being more staunchly racist than then-incumbent segregationist Democrat Ellison D. Smith.

External links

• Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress