“South Carolina Congressman" Thomas Hartnett Signed TLS Dated 1986 Mueller COA

Description

Up for auction
“South Carolina Congressman" Thomas F. Hartnett Signed TLS Dated 1986.
This item is certified authentic by
Todd Mueller Autographs
and comes with their Certificate of Authenticity.
ES-1181B
Thomas Forbes "Tommy" Hartnett
(born August 7, 1941) is a former
U.S. Representative
from
South Carolina
. Hartnett was born in
Charleston
. He graduated from Bishop England High School in Charleston in 1960. He attended the
College of Charleston
from 1960 to 1961 and was in the
United States Air Force
Reserve from 1963 to 1969. In 1964, Hartnett was elected to the
South Carolina House of Representatives
from a Charleston-area district. He served four terms in that body. Originally a
Democrat
, he became a Republican in 1972, and attended that year's state Republican convention (and every convention after that until 1980). He was elected to the
South Carolina Senate
in 1972 and served two terms. In 1980, Hartnett won the Republican nomination for the Charleston-based
1st District
after five-term incumbent
Mendel Jackson Davis
retired due to back problems. He narrowly defeated his Democratic opponent, Associate Deputy Commerce Secretary
Charles D. Ravenel
, becoming the first Republican to win an undisputed election in the district since
Reconstruction
. Hartnett likely owed his win to
Ronald Reagan
winning
Charleston County
with 55% of the vote. The district had also been trending Republican for some time at the national level; it has only supported the Democratic candidate for president once since 1956, when
Jimmy Carter
carried it in 1976. But conservative Democrats continued to hold most of the district's seats in the state legislature, as well as most local offices, well into the 1990s. Hartnett was convincingly reelected in 1982, and took 61% of the vote in 1984. He gave up his seat in 1986 to run for
lieutenant governor
, narrowly losing to Democratic State Senator
Nick Theodore
. He then became a real estate agent, founding Hartnett Realty in his hometown of
Mount Pleasant
. Hartnett came out of retirement in 1992 to run for the
United States Senate
against four-term incumbent and fellow Charleston resident
Ernest Hollings
. He gave Hollings his closest race ever, losing by only three percentage points in a very good year for Democrats nationally. Hartnett lives in Mount Pleasant and is chairman of the family-owned Hartnett Realty.
[1]
The firm was created in 1947 by Catherine Forbes Hartnett and is one of the oldest
[2]
Charleston real estate firms. He was a delegate to every Republican National Convention from 1980 to 2000.