Rep. Nathan Deal (R)

The congressman from the 9th District is Nathan Deal. He was first elected in 1992 as a Democrat but switched parties and became a Republican in April 1995. Deal grew up in Gainesville, went to Mercer University, and then served in the Army from 1966-68. He returned home to practice “street-level law,” always choosing offices located on a ground floor. He was an assistant district attorney, a juvenile court judge, and a county attorney. In 1980, at age 38, he was elected to the state Senate as a Democrat. President Carter was still in office, and the Legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic. It would have been pointless to run as a Republican. A capable legislator, Deal was elected Senate president pro tem twice. In 1992, when “Boll Weevil” Democrat Ed Jenkins retired from the U.S. House, Deal ran for his seat and defeated a Republican by winning 59% of the vote.

In the House, Deal opposed the new Clinton administration’s economic policies, voting against the 1993 budget, for the line-item veto, and for the balanced-budget amendment. Many saw Deal as a potential party-switcher, but while he was campaigning in 1994, he said, “If I choose to switch during the term, I think the honest thing to do is resign and have a special election.” In early 1995, he worked with other Democrats to offer an alternative to the Republicans’ welfare reform package. He expressed unhappiness with his party’s opposition to tax cuts and with senior Democrats’ criticism of Clean Water Act revisions that he had won on a bipartisan committee vote. On April 10, 1995, back home in Gainesville, Deal announced that he was switching to the Republican Party—but he did not resign and run in a special election. He said the national Democratic Party was unwilling to admit it was “out of touch with mainstream America.” Democrats were stunned, and Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia was delighted. Deal’s reward was a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Deal is influential on health care issues in his role as ranking Republican on the Health Subcommittee, a panel he chaired when Republicans were in the majority. In 2007, he sought additional funds for low-income kids in Georgia’s PeachCare health insurance system, but he resisted Democrats’ attempts to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $35 billion in five years. He insisted that already-eligible persons should receive coverage first and that immigrant children should wait five years. He and other Republicans also wanted to raise the income threshold for family eligibility and thereby reduce the program’s enrollment and costs. Deal was a key negotiator at talks with the majority Democrats that ultimately failed to produce a SCHIP bill that year. In 2008, he pressed Congress to require public disclosure of medical costs, saying such transparency is necessary to stop health providers from price-gouging the uninsured, whom they often charge more than they charge people with insurance for the same services.

Deal also worked with subcommittee Chairman Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., to reform the Food and Drug Administration. In 2005, when he chaired the subcommittee, he assembled $11 billion in Medicaid cuts over five years, including elimination of prescription coverage for Viagra. “Taxpayers are willing to pay for somebody’s heart medication, but they are not going to buy their beer or their Viagra.”

Deal’s voting record is mostly conservative, with an occasional deviation on foreign policy. He is the longtime sponsor of unsuccessful legislation to cut congressional salaries as much as 10% when the budget is not balanced. As a member of the Immigration Reform Caucus, he sponsored higher penalties for illegal aliens and proposed ending automatic citizenship for their children born in the United States. Deal made some accommodations for the rapidly growing Hispanic population in his own district by backing increased spending for bilingual education. A majority of school children in Dalton are Hispanic.

Deal has not faced serious primary or general election opposition since he switched parties.