Rep. John Linder (R) Elected 1992, 6th term
Born:	Sept. 9, 1942, Deer River, MN
Home:	Duluth
Education:	U. of MN, B.S. 1964, D.D.S., 1967
Religion:	Presbyterian
Marital Status:	married (Lynne)
Elected  Office:	GA House of Reps., 1974-80, 1982-90.
Military Career:	Air Force, 1967-69.
Professional Career:	Practicing dentist, 1969-82; Founder & Pres., Linder Financial Corp., 1977-92.
Additional Info
Recent Articles · Offices · Committees · Ratings · Key Votes · Election Results District Demographics
More On Georgia
At A Glance · State Profile District Map Redistricting · Almanac Home

In the last two decades, greater Atlanta has grown out in every direction, south past the airport, west over the Chattahoochee, north past far Buckhead and the Perimeter Mall, and east and northeast past Stone Mountain. The outer suburbs north of Atlanta have grown fastest of all: A semi-circular ring that stretches from Paulding County in the west, with its starter homes for young families, to Gwinnett County to the east, with its more mature neighborhoods of affluent professionals and entrepreneurs. The closer-in portion of Gwinnett, near I-85, with their older shopping districts, have been attracting Georgia's largest concentration of Hispanics and also middle class blacks; recently, several of Atlanta's outer counties decided to link up with urban bus lines for the first time, after shunning them for years. But further out, downtown Atlanta seems very far away, both physically--it is 30 to 50 miles, and more than an hour of clogged rush-hour driving, to Peachtree Street--and in state of mind. For many, Atlanta is something that whizzes by on the way to Hartsfield International Airport.

The growth here is hard to overstate. Gwinnett County cast 21,000 votes in 1972 and 190,000 in 2000, not so far behind Fulton County, which includes central Atlanta, or DeKalb County just to the east. Forsyth County, with golf courses and expensive subdivisions, was the third fastest growing county in the United States in the 1990s; it grew another 12% between 2000 and 2001. Paulding County was the 10th fastest growing county during that period. These counties were once rural, low-income and heavily Democratic; now they are full of strivers and achievers, with many religious conservatives and many economic conservatives, but very, very few liberals. The big local issue has been the Northern Arc highway proposed by Governor Roy Barnes; commuters between Forsyth and Cherokee Counties ached for relief, but others opposed the new highway, and Barnes was defeated not least by Forsyth and Cherokee, which voted a combined 71%-25% for his Republican opponent Sonny Perdue.

The 7th Congressional District owes its existence to the rapid growth here in the 1990s; it was a new district created by Democratic redistricters to cordon off Republican votes away from districts they hoped to win. It includes almost all of Paulding County and Cherokee County, plus large parts of Bartow, Forsyth and Gwinnett Counties. The last is most important: Gwinnett casts well over half the district's votes. This is one of the Atlanta area districts into which Democratic redistricters packed fast-growing, heavily Republican areas, in hopes of capturing districts denuded of such Republican support. The result is a very heavily Republican district--70% for George W. Bush in 2000.

The congressman from the 7th District is John Linder, a Republican first elected in 1992 in the 4th District (which combined north DeKalb County and half of Gwinnett) and, after a court-ordered redistricting, elected in 1996, 1998 and 2000 in the 11th District (which stretched from Gwinnett to Athens and the South Carolina border). Like many in the Georgia House delegation, Linder grew up elsewhere, in his case Minnesota, where he went to college and dental school. After two years in the Air Force he moved to greater Atlanta and practiced dentistry for 13 years. In 1977 he started Linder Financial Corporation, a lending institution for entrepreneurial ventures in the South. In 1974, at 32, he was elected to the Georgia House, where he served all but two of the next 16 years. In 1990 he challenged 4th District Democratic Congressman Ben Jones and lost 52%-48%. Following the 1992 redistricting, Linder ran again in the 4th, where he ran first in a six-candidate primary and won the runoff with 62% of the vote. In the general, he faced Democratic state Senator Cathey Steinberg and, in a race that went along national party lines, won by just 51%-49%.

From this tenuous beginning Linder quickly became an important congressman. For a time he was a close ally to Newt Gingrich. They went back a ways: In 1975 Linder, Gingrich and Paul Coverdell began meeting to try to build a strong Georgia Republican Party, surely not imagining that within 20 years they would be Congressman, Speaker and Senator. In 1984 they developed an Operation Breakthrough for electing Republicans in conservative-leaning Georgia legislative districts which had never been seriously contested before. A decade later, they were setting political strategy for congressional Republicans.

Linder has a calm, usually humorous demeanor; his views are solidly conservative--though a bit more Wall Street than Main Street. After Republicans won control, Gingrich gave Linder a seat on the House Rules Committee and called on him often to preside over contentious debates; he floor-managed rules on complex bills like the 1996 Telecommunications Act. After the 1996 election, Gingrich chose Linder to replace Bill Paxon as chairman of the NRCC. He excelled at fundraising, and relentlessly prevailed on incumbents to contribute to Republican challengers. He did a good job at recruiting candidates. He shared the assumption of most observers that Republicans would gain seats as the out party in a presidential off-year election. His targeting was good, but one of his ads misfired: At the behest of Gingrich, it raised the trust and impeachment issues against Bill Clinton. While run in only a few districts, the ad was publicized nationally; it yielded a minimum of gain and a maximum of pain. When the Republicans actually lost five seats, Linder was obviously in deep trouble. Linder said the problem was the lack of a "strong message," which "was not my responsibility"--an obvious reference to Gingrich, who paid a far bigger price for the election outcome. Gingrich, already under attack before resigning, said that the next NRCC head would be elected by the conference rather than appointed by the speaker. Tom Davis of Virginia, a highly competent election buff, started running for the job, with the support of Whip Tom DeLay. Linder reacted bitterly: "I remember when Newt Gingrich's wife left a press conference in tears when he blamed her. So I don't think he has any compunction about blaming me." That was Thursday, two days after the election. Gingrich announced his resignation late on Friday; 12 days later, Linder lost to Davis 130-77.

Taking a far lower profile, Linder resumed his legislative work and got on well with the new Republican leadership; Rules is not a good committee for a party rebel. He turned his long-term attention toward the fight for fundamental tax reform. If Republicans continue to limit the terms of their committee chairmen, and if they retain their House majority, and if Porter Goss retires in 2004 as he nearly did in 2002, Linder could be chairman of Rules in January 2005.

Linder is a redistricting buff, and was named the NRCC's vice chairman for redistricting by Davis. But he had no say in redistricting in Georgia, which was controlled by Democrats. They placed two pairs of Republican incumbents in the same seats and created four new districts which they hoped would elect Democrats. Some of their ideas backfired. Saxby Chambliss, placed in the same district with Jack Kingston, decided to run for the Senate and won. Two of the four districts targeted by Democrats elected Republicans. But the 7th District did end up with a primary contest between two Republican incumbents, Linder and Bob Barr. Barr angered many Republicans when he decided to run in the new 7th, only a little of which he had represented; that was only 18% of his old district. They hoped he would run in the new 11th, which contained more of his old seat and which in fact ended up electing a Republican, albeit by a very narrow margin. Linder had represented, at one time or another, most of Gwinnett County, and one-third of his old 11th District was in the new 7th.

The race was a contrast of styles, not of voting records. Barr had raised serious civil liberties questions about the USA Patriot Act and other legislation coming through the Judiciary Committee, but otherwise their records were much the same. Linder campaigned as a political insider and an experienced representative who quietly got things done. Barr, an early advocate of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, campaigned as a champion of conservative principle. Linder had more local financial support; Barr had financial supporters from across the nation. The campaign grew bitter after a while, and there were some odd moments. Two weeks before the primary Barr, long an advocate of Second Amendment rights, was handling a gun at a supporter's house when it went off and shattered a glass door. But the final result was unambiguous. On August 20, Linder won 64%-36%. Barr won 60% and 61% in Bartow and Paulding Counties, but they cast only 14% of the primary votes. Linder won 74% in Gwinnett County, which cast 57% of the primary votes.

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

DC Office
1727 LHOB 20515, 202-225-4272; Fax: 202-225-4696; Web site: linder.house.gov

State Offices
Canton, 770-499-1888; Duluth, 770-232-3005.

Committees

• House Administration (4th of 6 R).
• Rules (3d of 9 R): Technology & the House (Chmn.).
• Select Committee on Homeland Security (19th of 27 R): Cybersecurity, Science and Research & Development; Intelligence & Counterterrorism; Rules.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	0	7	0	13	87	100	60	100	100	92	100
2001	0	--	0	0	--	--	64	100	96	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	15%	--	86%		0%	--	91%
Social	0%	--	81%		0%	--	75%
Foreign	4%	--	87%		0%	--	85%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform N 4. Ban ANWR Development N 5. Faith-Based Charities Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority Y 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	John Linder (R)	138,997	79%	$2,214,265
	Michael Berlon (D)	37,124	21%
2002 primary	John Linder (R)	56,892	64%
	Bob Barr (R)	31,374	36%
2000 general	John Linder (R)	unopposed
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (69%); 1996 (64%); 1994 (58%); 1992 (51%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	154,575	70%
	Gore (D)	60,082	27%
	Other	6,694	3%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Seventh 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: R +22
• District Size: 1,220 square miles
• Population in 2000: 629,706; 85.9% urban; 14.1% rural
• Median Household Income: $63,455; 4.5% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 20.6% blue collar; 69.1% white collar; 10.3% gray collar; 12.1% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 82.4% White, 6.9% Black, 3.8% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.1% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 5.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 11.9% USA, 9.5% English, 9.4% German
• Click here for statewide demographic data.