Riding on the tradition of a “widow’s mandate” in South
Carolina, Corinne Boyd Riley, without making a single
stump speech, appearing at an election rally, or even facing
a bona fide opponent, won the special election to fill the last
nine months of the term of her late husband, John Jacob
Riley. She became the fourth widow to represent South
Carolina and the second from a district in the south-central
part of the state. She held the seat long enough to vote for
several projects benefiting local interests in the district her
husband had represented during his eight terms in the House.
Corinne Anderson Boyd was born in Piedmont, South
Carolina, on July 4, 1893. The daughter of a Methodist
preacher, Reverend George Boyd, she was named for
her mother. She graduated from Converse College in
Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1915 and taught high
school for the next 22 years. In 1917 she married John
Riley, a World War I veteran, real estate broker, and
insurance businessman. The couple raised a daughter,
Helen, and a son, O. Beverley. From 1938 to 1942,
Corinne Riley worked as a field representative for the
South Carolina textbook commission. During World
War II, she joined the civilian personnel office at Shaw
Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina. In November 1944, John Riley won election as a Democrat to the 79th
Congress (1945–1947) as a south-central South Carolina
Representative. He succeeded Willa Lybrand Fulmer, the
widow of longtime Representative Hampton Pitts Fulmer.
Riley served two terms before being defeated for the 81st
Congress (1949–1951) in 1948; however, he was re-elected
to the 82nd Congress (1951–1953) and then to the five
succeeding terms.1 He voted in line with other conservative
southern Democrats, opposing foreign aid expenditures
and seeking a balanced budget. He eventually served on
the Appropriations Committee, working on its defense and
public works subcommittees.
When John Riley died on January 1, 1962, local and
national leaders from both parties urged Corinne Riley to
run in the special election to fill her husband’s seat.2 She
initially resisted the invitation to represent the state’s largest
district, but reversed herself and announced her candidacy
in mid-January. “I want to finish the work John started,”
she told reporters. “Women do have a place in politics, of
course, but it’s not one of leadership. It is one of helping
her husband.”3 Nominating a deceased Congressman’s
widow had become tradition in South Carolina starting
in the 1930s, with the precedent set by previous widows Elizabeth H. Gasque, Clara Gooding McMillan, and
Willa Lybrand Fulmer. Both parties respected this gesture
of sympathy as a political code.4 They further announced
that if Riley won the nomination, neither party would run
another candidate against her with the expectation that she
would retire at the end of the term.
However, South Carolina political leaders did not
expect another more experienced woman politician to
challenge the tradition. Riley faced an 11-term member
of the state house of representatives, Martha T. Fitzgerald,
in the February 1962 Democratic primary. Fitzgerald
claimed her credentials as an able state legislator made her
a more suitable candidate than Riley. Still mourning for her
husband, Riley made no campaign appearances and sent
surrogates to read her speeches at various political meetings.
She promised only to pursue the conservative agenda of
her husband and to retire at the end of his unexpired term.
“I know just what my husband thought about foreign aid,
the United Nations, the Peace Corps and federal aid to
education, and I’ll vote his views,” she declared, ticking off
a series of programs which John Riley had opposed.5 In the
end, tradition won out. Riley triumphed by more than a
two-to-one margin, carried all eight counties in the district,
and described the nomination as “a tribute to the voters’
confidence in my husband and their faith in me.” Despite
the strength of precedent and outpouring of sympathy
on her behalf, Riley admitted that her defeat of Fitzgerald
was “rather surprising.”6 Shortly after Riley’s nomination,
the Columbia State observed that she “would bring to the
office a considerable knowledge of its requirements gained
through her close association with it through her late
husband. Also, since she shares the conservative views of her
husband, and since this district is largely (not totally) one
of that bent, there would be considerable satisfaction from
the service of Mrs. Riley, a dedicated South Carolinian and
a woman of considerable force and ability.”7 Corinne Riley
faced no challenger in the April 10, 1962, special election.
After taking the oath of office two days later,
Congresswoman Riley was assigned a seat on the
Committee on Science and Astronautics. Though her
husband had served on the Appropriations Committee,
she had no illusions about getting on that sought-after
committee.8 She did, however, resist initial offers for the
Education and Labor Committee and the Committee on
Post Office and Civil Service, convincing House Speaker
John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and Majority Leader Carl Albert of Oklahoma that the Science and Aeronautics
assignment would be “more useful” to voters in her district.
She also expressed satisfaction that the assignment “might
mean a trip to Europe.”9 During her brief eight-month
term, Riley introduced a bill authorizing the General
Services Administration to transfer surplus property to
the Aiken (South Carolina) Historical Society for use as
a historical monument. She also supported authorizing
the Federal Communications Commission to require that
television sets be equipped with high-frequency channels, a
proposal she hoped would benefit an educational television
system operating in her district. “We in South Carolina have
worked long and hard to preserve this valuable resource
which we call our VHF channel in Columbia,” Riley noted
in her brief and only floor speech as a Member.10
True to her campaign promise, Riley declined to seek
re-election in the fall of 1962. Years later she described her
congressional career as “a pleasant interlude.”11 Riley retired
to Sumter, where she died on April 12, 1979.
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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