The congressman from the 10th District is Paul Broun, a Republican who was the surprise winner of a special election in 2007 after the death of GOP incumbent Charlie Norwood. Born in Atlanta, Broun is a lifelong Georgia resident who got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. His father, Paul Broun Sr., served as a moderate Democratic state senator from Athens for 38 years. The younger Broun was also active in politics, though he has said that he was “far, far apart on the issues” from his father. He served as president of the Georgia Sport Shooting Association, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, and as vice president of political action for Safari Club International, a national advocacy group for hunters. (His Capitol Hill office is jammed with stuffed sheep, bears and other trophies.) Read More

The congressman from the 10th District is Paul Broun, a Republican who was the surprise winner of a special election in 2007 after the death of GOP incumbent Charlie Norwood. Born in Atlanta, Broun is a lifelong Georgia resident who got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. His father, Paul Broun Sr., served as a moderate Democratic state senator from Athens for 38 years. The younger Broun was also active in politics, though he has said that he was “far, far apart on the issues” from his father. He served as president of the Georgia Sport Shooting Association, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, and as vice president of political action for Safari Club International, a national advocacy group for hunters. (His Capitol Hill office is jammed with stuffed sheep, bears and other trophies.)

He first ran for the House in 1990 but lost against Democratic incumbent Richard Ray in the old 3rd District, which was then based in west-central Georgia. After redistricting two years later, Broun ran in the revamped and more Republican 3rd District south of Atlanta, and lost the primary to Mac Collins, who held the seat for 12 years. In 1996, Broun closed his medical practice to campaign full-time for a year for Georgia’s open Senate seat. He was vastly outspent, and finished a distant fourth in the primary with an anemic 3%.

There was little doubt that a Republican would succeed Norwood in this conservative district, but few predicted it would be Broun. State Sen. Jim Whitehead was the early front-runner. Whitehead attended the University of Georgia, where he was a star offensive lineman. He later opened a tire and auto shop in the Augusta area, served seven years on the Columbia County Commission—the final two as chairman—and won a state Senate seat in 2004. He was endorsed by Norwood’s widow, Gloria.

The seat seemed to be Whitehead’s to lose, which is exactly what he did. He avoided debates and committed several gaffes, including a 2004 comment that dismissed the University of Georgia as a “bunch of liberals” who, except for the football team, ought to be bombed. In the June 19 special election, he won 44%, ahead of Broun’s 21%, but not enough to avoid a runoff. The race turned into a contest between candidates representing the district’s two population centers, Augusta, Whitehead’s turf, and Athens, Broun’s home base.

Broun touted his medical background, claiming he was perhaps the only physician in Georgia who regularly made house calls. “I’ve got an old-fashioned medical bag,” he said. “My office is my GMC Yukon.” Broun said he opposed any steps to permit illegal immigrants to gain legal status, highlighted his connections to Christian conservatives on social issues, and also reached out to African-Americans and other Democrats, especially in Athens. Whitehead talked up his Augusta-area roots and complained about his Athens-based opposition. Whitehead had a considerable advantage in campaign dollars. Still, Broun won with 50.4%, just 394 votes ahead of Whitehead, with 49.6%. Broun carried Athens’s Clarke County with a remarkable 90%, while holding Whitehead to 73% in Columbia County. He also won 12 other counties.

In the House, Broun has cultivated his religious conservative base while becoming a favorite of the tea party movement. “I wasn’t supposed to be here,” he told anti-abortion protesters in January 2008. “I believe in my heart the Holy Spirit called me to run for Congress.” He introduced a bill in 2009 to designate a “Year of the Bible.” He also has become an inviting target for bloggers and opinion writers on the left. Salon.com’s Joe Conason dubbed him “the new stupidest member of Congress” in 2010 for boasting that he returned his federal census form without filling in any of the questions. The first bill he introduced would ban all abortions, and he called for a national sales tax to replace the income tax. He also called for a ban on the sales of Playboy and Penthouse magazines at military installments, no doubt getting thousands of soldiers stationed at Georgia’s bases to snap to attention. With a flourish for colorful quotes, he said this of his opposition to the financial market bailout bill in 2008: “This is a huge cow patty with a piece of marshmallow stuck in the middle of it, and I am not going to eat that cow patty.” In May 2009, he and Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., objected to spending $1.5 million in a defense supplemental bill to develop an H1N1 flu vaccine. “We are stealing our grandchildren’s future by borrowing and spending,” he said.

After Democrat Barack Obama’s historic election as the first African-American president, Broun described Obama’s agenda as “Marxist” and criticized Republican nominee John McCain’s campaign as “inept.” He ultimately backed away from those remarks. But his management of his office seemed to be no smoother than his political discourse. Broun spent almost all of the annual allotment that lawmakers receive to run their offices in the first half of 2008, prompting staff members to quit, the Journal-Constitution reported. After reducing office staff, he succeeded in staying within his budget in 2009. But he later encountered a different financial problem: A bank that was partly owned by him and two brothers failed and was taken over by the federal government in March 2010.

Broun had another competitive primary in 2008, this time against former state House Majority Whip Barry Fleming, who was Augusta-based and sought to play down tensions with Athens. Fleming criticized Broun’s opposition to federal spending for economic development and law enforcement. But Broun was helped by the endorsement of the anti-tax group Club for Growth and by other Republicans in the Georgia delegation. Broun won the primary with unexpected ease, 71%-29, leading in every county. In the general election against Bobby Saxon, an Iraq war veteran and gun-rights advocate, Broun won 61%-39%. He increased his percentage to 67% in 2010.