The congressman from the 6th District is Tom Price, a Republican first elected in 2004 who has become one of the leading spokesmen for his party’s conservative message. Price grew up in Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan and its medical school. His father and grandfather were both physicians. He did his residency in orthopedic surgery at Emory Medical School and then moved to Roswell, where he was involved in civic affairs and was president of the Rotary Club. Working closely with the Medical Association of Georgia, he campaigned locally against President Clinton’s health care plan in the early 1990s. When a seat opened in the state Senate in 1996, he was elected, and quickly moved up the leadership ranks to become majority leader when Republicans captured the Senate in 2002 for the first time since Reconstruction. Read More

The congressman from the 6th District is Tom Price, a Republican first elected in 2004 who has become one of the leading spokesmen for his party’s conservative message. Price grew up in Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan and its medical school. His father and grandfather were both physicians. He did his residency in orthopedic surgery at Emory Medical School and then moved to Roswell, where he was involved in civic affairs and was president of the Rotary Club. Working closely with the Medical Association of Georgia, he campaigned locally against President Clinton’s health care plan in the early 1990s. When a seat opened in the state Senate in 1996, he was elected, and quickly moved up the leadership ranks to become majority leader when Republicans captured the Senate in 2002 for the first time since Reconstruction.

When Republican U.S. Rep. Johnny Isakson announced he was running for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Zell Miller, the contest for this heavily Republican open seat was hard-fought and big-spending. Three state senators ran—Price from Fulton County, and Robert Lamutt and Chuck Clay from Cobb County. Price spent $499,000 of his own money and contrasted his work in medicine with the legal and business careers of his two main opponents. He highlighted his fiscal conservatism and strong support for limiting jury awards in malpractice suits, a position that won him considerable support from the medical community. Calling the federal income tax “broken,” he supported a national retail sales tax. He said that he had “a surgeon’s mentality…. I get things done.”

Price led the first round of the primary with 35% of the vote; Lamutt made it into the runoff with 28%. Lamutt, who gave $1.5 million to his campaign, criticized Price as a “special interest” candidate because he raised large sums from fellow doctors. He also attacked Price’s 2003 support for a 25-cent tax increase on cigarettes. Price defended his vote as a tool to reduce local property taxes, and claimed Lamutt helped cigarette makers at the expense of everyday people. In the runoff, Price got 79% in Fulton County and held Lamutt to 59% in Cobb. With the small vote in Cherokee County split nearly evenly, Price won 54%-46%.

In the House, Price’s voting record is among the most conservative. As a member of the Financial Services Committee, he has dealt contentiously on housing and other issues with liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. When Democrats sought to extend unemployment benefits in 2010, Price cited economists who warned of a “moral hazard” in doing so. On health care, he opposed government intervention to negotiate Medicare drug prices, which he said were being reduced by market forces. He also countered the Democratic health care reform bill with his own legislation focused on creating tax incentives for consumers to purchase insurance on the individual market. As one of 13 physicians in the House in 2009, he helped to create the Medical and Dental Doctors in Congress Caucus to try to establish a unified Republican message on health care.

Price also has been a fierce partisan. In 2009, he became chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which promotes conservative ideas and legislation. He helped create an “Official Truth Squad” to highlight statements and positions of Democrats that he thinks might be unpopular with the public. The Washington Post wrote in 2007: “The bookish physician has transformed himself into a Republican guerrilla warrior, a near-constant presence on the House floor, gumming up the works with parliamentary objections, verbal volleys, and partisan maneuvering.”

He was a leading organizer of the House Republicans’ protest in the House chamber during the August 2008 recess, which was aimed at pressuring Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring to the floor a bill allowing offshore oil exploration in America’s coastal waters. He found an additional foil in President Obama, frequently sending out YouTube videos and appearing on television news shows and writing op-ed columns to blast the president and promote “fundamental American principles,” including low taxes and limited government. Democrats brushed him off as an ideological irritant, but his energy—he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he gets in before 7:30 a.m. and leaves at 10:30 or 11 p.m.—and his enthusiasm for playing political hardball impressed his GOP colleagues.

In 2010, Price took a step up in leadership to become chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the party’s in-house idea factory. Rep. Connie Mack of Florida initially considered challenging him for the position, but dropped out. “Now we must begin earning back the public’s trust,” Price said after winning the post.

Georgia’s redistricting in 2005 served the Fulton County-based Price’s interest by reducing opportunities for GOP primary challengers from Cobb County. That county is now divided between the 6th, 11th, and 13th districts. He has been re-elected with only minor opposition and ran unopposed in 2010. He did get some negative attention 2010, when it was revealed he was among eight lawmakers under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for holding fundraisers or receiving donations shortly from businesses shortly before voting on a Wall Street regulation bill.