Rep. Denise Majette (D) Elected 2002, 1st term
Born:	May 18, 1955, Brooklyn, NY
Home:	Stone Mountain
Education:	Yale U., B.A. 1976, Duke U., J.D. 1979
Religion:	African Methodist Episcopal
Marital Status:	married (Rogers)
Elected  Office:	DeKalb Cnty. State Ct. judge, 1993-02.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., Legal Aid Soc. of Winston-Salem, 1981-83; Law Asst., GA Ct. of Appeals, 1984-89; Spec. Asst. Atty. Gen. of GA, 1991-92.
Additional Info
Recent Articles · Offices · Committees · Election Results District Demographics
More On Georgia
At A Glance · State Profile District Map Redistricting · Almanac Home

In 1920, when Gutzom Borglum began sculpting Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson into the side of Stone Mountain, the huge outcropping of granite was a day's drive into the country from central Atlanta. Even when the memorial (the largest single piece of sculpture in the world) was completed in 1972, suburban development barely reached this far. But today, after two decades of some of the most explosive metropolitan growth in the country, DeKalb County, which Stone Mountain overlooks, is part of the core of the Atlanta metropolitan area, and this monument to the Confederacy sits in one of the most cosmopolitan and liberal constituencies in the South. Not far from Stone Mountain is Emory University, just beyond the old mansions of Druid Hills. A few miles away are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the federal government's superb research institutions. All around in north DeKalb County are affluent suburbs, including much of Atlanta's Jewish community, with voting habits much more liberal than in other suburbs. South DeKalb is being transformed from mostly rural territory 25 years ago to one of the nation's largest collections of affluent black neighborhoods, rivaled only by Prince George's County, Maryland. This has pushed DeKalb County's politics well to the left: It was a Republican county when rural Georgia was almost all Democratic in the 1960s, now it is the most heavily Democratic major county in Georgia, considerably more so than next-door Fulton County which includes central Atlanta; in 2000 DeKalb voted 71%-27% for Al Gore, his best percentage except for one tiny rural county in all the 159 counties of Georgia.

The 4th Congressional District consists of almost all of DeKalb County plus a small slice of the more Republican Gwinnett County to the northeast. It is one of the most regularly shaped districts in Georgia, and one of those least changed from the previous redistricting. The 4th and next-door 5th Districts are the most Democratic districts in Georgia: They voted 69% and 70% for Al Gore in 2000.

The congresswoman from the 4th District is Denise Majette, a Democrat elected in 2002. She grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Yale University and Duke University law school. She worked as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society in Winston Salem, North Carolina, where she also was an adjunct law professor at Wake Forest. In 1983 she moved to Georgia and worked as a law clerk, a special assistant attorney general, and a partner in the Atlanta law firm of Jenkins, Nelson & Welch. In 1992, Majette was sworn in as an administrative law judge for Georgia's workers compensation board. In June 1993, then-Governor Zell Miller appointed her to the state court in DeKalb County; she later won two elections to the post. She resigned as judge in February 2002 to run for Congress against incumbent Democrat Cynthia McKinney.

McKinney was a 10-year incumbent with a left-wing voting record and a flair for controversy. In October 2001, after New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani turned down a $10 million gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed because of Alwaleed's urging that the United States "reexamine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause." On October 12, McKinney wrote Alwaleed a letter saying that "there are a growing number of people in the United States who recognize, like you, that U.S. policy in the Middle East needs serious examination." She added, "Although your offer was not accepted by Mayor Giuliani, I would like to ask you to consider assisting Americans who are in dire need right now. I believe we can guide your generosity to help improve the state of black America and build better lives." Senator Zell Miller called her letter "disgraceful" and said it "crossed the line" in agreeing with the position of our enemy." In an October 29 opinion piece in The Washington Post McKinney defended herself and said, "I believe that when it comes to major foreign policy issues, many prefer to have black people seen and not heard."

McKinney attracted even more attention in April 2002 when she charged that George W. Bush "may" have had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks and did not act on it because the war on terrorism would boost the defense stocks of associates of his father. Miller immediately called her comments "loony" and sent a $1,000 check to Majette. An April 2002 poll showed Majette leading McKinney 41%-37%--a highly unusual result, since incumbents rarely trail lesser-known challengers in primary races, and an indication that McKinney may already have been headed for defeat. But the race only began to receive national attention in June 2002 when Congressman Earl Hilliard of Alabama, another critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East, was defeated in the Democratic runoff by Artur Davis. At that point, by the end of June, McKinney had raised $269,000 in the previous quarter and had $463,000 cash on hand, while Majette had raised $246,000 (a larger percentage of it from Georgia) and had $99,000 cash on hand. Between the end of June and the August 22 primary, it became known that one-third of McKinney's contributions over the past five years had come from donors with apparently Arab-American or Muslim names and that at least 18 of her donors were officers of Muslim foundations under investigation by the FBI or people who had voiced support for Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist organizations or had made inflammatory statements about Jews. McKinney's own father, longtime Atlanta state Representative Billy McKinney, in October 1996 called her Republican opponent a "racist Jew." After July 1, Majette herself raised a lot of money from contributors outside Georgia, most presumably from supporters of Israel or those appalled by some of McKinney's statements: By the end of the primary, Majette had raised $1.12 million to McKinney's $618,000.

The national media treated the contest as a proxy battle on Middle East policy; it was also a contest between conflicting styles of black leadership. McKinney attacked Majette as "a Democrat in name only" and a tool of white interests. She accused her of "flip-flopping" on affirmative action because Majette did not support reparations for descendants of slaves. Majette, for the most part, declined to return fire, preferring instead to focus on domestic issues and criticism of McKinney's constituent service record. McKinney was endorsed by civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, state Representative Tyrone Brooks, Martin Luther King III, Jesse Jackson and the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan. Former Atlanta Mayor and Congressman Andrew Young, listed as a McKinney supporter, said he had been in a previous campaign but wasn't this time. Billy McKinney, asked about Young by a television interviewer the night before the primary, said, "That ain't nothing. That's nothing. Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S." (He was forced into a runoff, which he lost after serving in the legislature for 30 years). Majette beat Cynthia McKinney 58%-42% a resounding margin in a primary against an incumbent. "I may be five foot one, but I'm ten feet tall tonight," Majette said on election night. "We united this district. My opponent had divided it for 10 long years."

McKinney seemed to think that the outcome was produced by a Republican crossover, made easy because Georgia does not have party registration. "It seems like the Republicans wanted to beat me more than the Democrats wanted to keep me." But this is, to judge from the 2000 presidential election results, a 69% Democratic district; there are not that many Republicans who could cross over. In the much lower-turnout 2000 primary, 82% of primary votes had been cast in the Democratic primary; in this much higher-turnout contest, 95% of primary votes were cast in the Democratic primary. If 13% of Democratic primary votes were cast by behavioral Republicans, they could not have made the difference, because Majette's margin was 17% of the vote. A post-election review of the vote by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Majette's strongest black-majority precincts were those with the highest median incomes, mostly near Stone Mountain, while McKinney won poorer neighborhoods by margins exceeding 4-to-1; overall it appears that blacks voted about 2-1 for McKinney and whites 9-1 for Majette.

In this strongly Democratic district, Majette won the general election easily.

Update: May 20, 2004
On March 29, 2004, Majette announced she would seek to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Zell Miller in 2004.

Recent News Coverage
Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, House Race Hotline, National Journal and Technology Daily archives using the form below:

DC Office
1517 LHOB 20515, ; Fax: 202-226-0691; Web site: www.house.gov/majette

State Offices
Decatur, 404-633-0927.

Committees

• Budget (18th of 19 D).
• Education & the Workforce (19th of 22 D): Education Reform; Workforce Protections.
• Small Business (13th of 17 D): Regulatory Reform & Oversight; Tax, Finance & Exports.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Denise Majette (D)	118,045	77%	$1,917,879
	Cynthia Van Auken (R)	35,202	23%	$69,681
2002 primary	Denise Majette (D)	68,612	58%
	Cynthia McKinney (D)	49,058	42%
2000 general	Cynthia McKinney (D)	139,579	61%	$410,270
	Sunny Warren (R)	90,277	39%	$302,012

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	140,767	69%
	Bush (R)	58,338	29%
	Other	4,107	2%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Fourth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +20
• District Size: 254 square miles
• Population in 2000: 629,690; 99.6% urban; 0.4% rural
• Median Household Income: $49,307; 10.5% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 19.6% blue collar; 67.4% white collar; 13.0% gray collar; 10.7% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 32.0% White, 53.1% Black, 4.2% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.7% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 8.5% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 5.4% English, 4.6% German, 4.2% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.