was reconfigured as a black-majority district. That district was taken by Columbia resident and state human affairs commissioner Jim Clyburn, who became the first Democrat to represent Columbia since Watson's party switch in 1965. To compensate for this loss in population, Spence's district was pushed to the south and west, as far south as the resort city of Hilton Head Island and as far west as the fringes of the Augusta suburbs. By this time, the district had become very racially polarized, with African-American voters making up much of the Democratic base while whites supported Republicans. The loss of most of the district's was a likely factor in the Democrats not running a candidate against Spence for most of the 1990s. In 1993, Spence became the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, having been a member of the panel since his first term. The 2nd District includes Fort Jackson. He 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. Spence renamed the House Armed Services Committee the "Committee on National Security" when he took over as chairman. He focused on military readiness, calling it "the best insurance we have both for peace and freedom." Spence was also a strong advocate of missile defense. He stepped down as chairman after the 106th Congress because of caucus-imposed term limits. He later served as chairman of the House subcommittee on military procurement. Death and succession Spence died in Washington, D.C., on August 16, 2001, at the age of seventy-three, from complications following brain surgery. He had been admitted to St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, three weeks earlier for testing and treatment for nerve pain in his face. In 1988, he had received a double lung transplant in the same facility. This standalone lung transplant (without heart transplant) was among the first in history, and at time of the procedure Spence was the oldest patient to have received it (at 60 years of age). At the time of his death 13 years after the lung transplant, he was the longest-surviving lung transplant patient without a re-transplant, and this was a record he had held for nearly 10 years. He was buried at the Saint Peters Lutheran Church Cemetery in Lexington, South Carolina. Upon Spence's death, his former aide, Republican State Senator Joe Wilson, won the special