[5] Fowler earned a degree in psychology from Wofford College in Spartanburg in 1957[6] where he had his basketball jersey retired,[7] was president of the student body,[5] and became a member of the Kappa Alpha Order.

[11][12] Fowler's Fairness Commission allowed open primaries to be held in Wisconsin and Montana, reduced the threshold of votes that a candidate needed to receive in primaries or caucuses in order to qualify for delegates from 20% to 15%,[13] and increased the number of convention superdelegates from 568 in 1984 to 650 in 1988.

[3] Fowler's term as National Chairman included the 1996 presidential election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.

[15] In 1996, Fowler made a determination that Lyndon LaRouche, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination for the fifth time, was not a "bona fide Democrat" because of his "expressed political beliefs... which are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic" and due to his "past activities including exploitation of and defrauding contributors and voters", and instructed state parties to disregard votes for him.

[18] After Clinton's re-election, Fowler was accused of contacting the CIA about a businessman, Roger Tamraz, who had donated money to the Democratic party.

His answer to questions from the U.S. Senate about this was, "I have in the middle of the night, high noon, late in the afternoon, early in the morning, every hour of the day, for months now searched my memory about conversations with the CIA.

Following the 2006 midterm elections, in response to James Carville's call to remove Howard Dean as chair, Fowler e-mailed his fellow DNC members, saying, "Some ill-advised voices have suggested that, because of his 50-state strategy, Governor Dean should be replaced as Chair of the DNC.