He ran against five other candidates, including two sitting congressmen—John Rankin and William Colmer. Stennis was reelected in 1952, 1958, 1964, 1970, 1976, and 1982, and remained a strong presence within the Senate until 1989. Stennis was the first chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and wrote the first Senate ethics code. The John C. Stennis Space Center, the John C. Stennis National Student Congress, the USS John C. Stennis, and the John C. Stennis Lock and Dam are all named in his honor.