Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) Elected 2002, 1st term up 2008
Born:	Nov. 10, 1943, Warrenton, NC
Home:	Moultrie
Education:	U. of GA, B.A. 1966, U. of TN, J.D. 1968
Religion:	Episcopalian
Marital Status:	married (Julianne)
Elected  Office:	U.S. House of Reps., 1994-2002.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1968-94.
DC Office	416 RSOB20510, 202-224-3521; Fax: 202-224-0103; Web site: chambliss.senate.gov
State Offices	Atlanta, 404-763-9090; Augusta, 706-738-0302; Savannah, 912-232-3657.
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Saxby Chambliss, the senior senator from Georgia, was elected in 2002 after serving four terms in the House. Chambliss grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, the son of an Episcopalian minister, went to college in Georgia, and practiced business and agriculture law in Moultrie starting in 1968. In 1992 he ran for the House and lost the Republican primary; in 1994 he was the sole Republican candidate, while Democrats, as in days of yore, had a multi-candidate contest. The winner was Craig Mathis, the 32-year-old son of Congressman (1971-81) Dawson Mathis. Chambliss won 63%-37%.

In the House, Speaker Newt Gingrich saw that Chambliss got the committee assignments he needed most--Armed Services, to look after Warner Robins Air Force Base near Macon, and Agriculture, to protect subsidies for peanut farmers in the counties to the south. In 2001 he helped draft the farm bill provisions that phased out the peanut quota program--evidently he concluded there was just not enough support to maintain it--but to compensate quota holders.

In November 1998, Speaker-designate Bob Livingston put Chambliss on the Budget Committee and named him vice chairman; in July 1999 Budget Chairman John Kasich announced his retirement and Chambliss started a campaign for the post. In July 2000, after Senator Paul Coverdell died suddenly, Chambliss considered running in the November election to replace him; he had also considered running for governor in 1998. Speaker Dennis Hastert persuaded him to stay in the House, and Chambliss came away feeling he would get the Budget chair. But he had competition from Jim Nussle of Iowa; the Republican Steering Committee interviewed both candidates and in December 2000 picked Nussle. Chambliss got an Agriculture subcommittee chairmanship and Hastert made him head of a working group on terrorism. After September 11, Hastert made that into an Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.

These were obviously good political credentials for a Senate candidacy, and Chambliss had two other reasons to consider challenging Democratic Senator Max Cleland in 2002. One was Cleland's narrow 49%-48% margin of victory in 1996 and Georgia's Republican trend, evident in George W. Bush's 55%-43% margin there in 2000. The other was the uncertainty of his House seat. Democratic redistricters passed a plan in September 2001 that left him with two unpleasant options: run in a primary against Savannah-based 1st District Republican incumbent Jack Kingston or in the new Democratic-leaning 3d District. The Bush White House and campaign committee Chairman Bill Frist urged Chambliss to run for the Senate, and in October 2001 he announced he would.

Chambliss was not an initial favorite to win. Cleland had a compelling biography. After college he volunteered for the Army and went to Vietnam in 1967; he lost both legs and his right arm when a loose grenade exploded. In 1982 he was elected Georgia secretary of state and was reelected three times by wide margins. In October 1995, after Senator Sam Nunn announced his retirement after four terms, he ran for the Senate and beat Republican businessman Guy Millner 49%-48%. He served on the Armed Services Committee and had a moderate voting record by the standards of some Democratic senators. But in 2001 and 2002 he tended to stick with the close-knit Democratic Caucus while his new colleague, Zell Miller, dissented vociferously on issues from the tax cut to the Department of Homeland Security personnel rules. On the Republican side, Chambliss won the August 2002 primary 61%-27%, carrying all but two of Georgia's 159 counties. "From Rabun Gap to Tybee Light, voters continue to tell me that Max Cleland is too liberal for Georgia," he said on primary election night.

Cleland's two major strengths--his sacrifice in Vietnam and his support from the highly popular Miller--seemed formidable. Cleland supporters noted that Chambliss had received four student deferments in the 1960s and then was found ineligible for service because of a bad knee. Moreover, Cleland pointed out, he voted for the use of military force in Iraq in 1998, in Kosovo in 1999, in the war on terrorism in September 2001 and against Iraq in October 2002. Miller, in ads, told voters of Cleland's "rock solid Georgia values." But that did not deter Chambliss from launching sharp attacks. He ran a series of 10-second spots, mentioning Cleland's opposition to an amendment banning aid for schools that barred the Boy Scouts, his votes against the partial-birth abortion ban, his support of school clinics passing out morning-after pills without parental permission, his vote against confirming Attorney General John Ashcroft, his vote against speeding elimination of the marriage penalty--all ending with an apparently astounded announcer asking, "Why would he do that?" Chambliss burnished his own national security issues by talking of his work on Armed Services and the Terrorism Subcommittee.

But probably the most important issue was homeland security. Cleland stood with other Senate Democrats in opposing the degree of flexibility over work rules in the new department. The dispute occupied the Senate for much of October and prevented passage of the bill. On the other side, standing loudly in his support of Bush and his opposition to the other Senate Democrats was Zell Miller. Chambliss ran an ad, much attacked in the press, showing pictures of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Max Cleland, and saying that Cleland "voted against the President's vital homeland security efforts 11 times." Against this, Cleland's ads attacking Chambliss for opposing an increase in the minimum wage and financing children's health insurance, for cutting student loans and school aid for the disabled, were weak stuff. In an October 27 debate, Cleland, echoing John Randolph of Roanoke on Henry Clay, said that the Osama Bin Laden ad was "like a mackerel in the moonlight--it both shines and stinks at the same time." But Cleland's record in Vietnam did not inoculate him against charges that he had given short shrift to homeland security.

The tide of opinion, as measured by very late polls, was moving toward Chambliss. George W. Bush visited the state three times in his behalf, with visits to Atlanta and Savannah the Saturday before the election. On Election Day Chambliss won 53%-46%, a much bigger margin than just about anyone expected for either candidate. Chambliss, though from south Georgia, carried metro Atlanta 52%-47%, running ahead of Republican governor candidate Sonny Perdue, and he carried the rest of Georgia 54%-45%. It was a slightly stronger showing than Paul Coverdell made running for reelection to the Senate four years before, primarily because of increased turnout and increasing Republican percentages in the outer counties of metro Atlanta. In the three black-majority counties of 20-county metro Atlanta (Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton), turnout was up 26,000 from 1998 and the Democratic margin up 34,000. But in the other 17 counties, turnout was up 123,000 and the Republican margin was up 40,000.

In the Senate Chambliss has had a conservative voting record and has taken a lead role on several issues. He served as chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of Judiciary, and in 2003 succeeded in passing a law modifying L-1 visas, so that international companies who bring in foreign employees cannot shop them out to other employers. He continued to be favorable to firms seeking more H-1B visas for high-tech foreign employees. He also pressed to change the law so that immigrants seeking to stay in the U.S. through the lottery procedure are not disqualified if the immigration authorities fail to process their applications on time; he was prompted by the case of divinity student Charles Nyaga, a Kenyan living in Cobb County, who was threatened with deportation. In February 2004 he called for "total overhaul" of immigration, but conceded that wasn't practicable. He sounded favorable to George W. Bush's proposal for a guest worker program, at least for farm workers, but unlike some Democrats who back similar proposals he argued that putting such workers on the road to citizenship unfairly rewards those who broke the law. With Edward Kennedy he sought an extension of the deadline for citizens from visa waiver countries to have biometric identification from October 2004 to November 2006. In October 2004 he moved to have jurisdiction over immigration stay in Judiciary rather than migrate to the Homeland Security panel.

Chambliss is also a member of the Armed Services Committee. Alert to the needs of Georgia military bases, he sought to require a recommendation of seven of the nine members of any base closing commission to list a base not recommended for closure by the secretary of defense. He sponsored a law to grant posthumous U.S. citizenship to foreign soldiers killed in combat; he was inspired by the case of 19-year-old Colombian Diego Rincon of Rockdale County. In December 2003 Armed Services Chairman John Warner named him to investigate sexual harassment at the Air Force Academy. Chambliss supported the Bush administration on Iraq, but in November 2003 voted to have the $20 billion in reconstruction aid classed as a loan rather than a grant. He strongly supported the nomination of his House Intelligence Committee colleague Porter Goss to be head of the CIA and called for a unified Intelligence Command in the Pentagon to interface with the new National Intelligence Director.

In January 2005 Chambliss became chairman of the Agriculture Committee, as more senior Republicans on the committee opted for other chairmanships or leadership posts. But the farm bill does not come up for reauthorization until 2007. He has been a backer of Rep. John Linder's Fair Tax, a 23% retail sales tax to replace all income taxes. He also sought to bar states from requiring catalytic converters on lawn mowers under 50 horsepower (Briggs & Stratton produces them in Statesboro).

In the 2004 campaign Chambliss took aim at John Kerry. "When you have a 32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems, folks in Georgia are going to look beyond what he says and look at his voting record." Kerry and his strong backer Max Cleland expressed outrage that a man who had not been qualified for military service because of a "trick knee" could criticize them, but most Georgia voters evidently gave greater weight to Chambliss's arguments.

Chambliss comes up for reelection in 2008.

Committees

• Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry (Chmn.).
• Armed Services: Airland; Personnel; Readiness & Management Support; Seapower.
• Intelligence (Select).
• Rules & Administration.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	5	0	0	0	82	83	93	96	95	100	--
2003	5	--	11	0	--	74	91	90	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	82%		10%	--	89%
Social	0%	--	59%		0%	--	84%
Foreign	46%	--	52%		0%	--	67%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Ban Drilling in ANWR N 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. Energy Bill Y 6. Support Roe v. Wade N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Assault Weapons Ban N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Ban Bunker-Buster Bomb N 11. Fund Iraq War Y 12. Restrict Missile Defense N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Saxby Chambliss (R)	1,071,153	53%	$7,743,004
	Max Cleland (D)	931,857	46%	$9,116,775
	Other	26,981	1%
2002 primary	Saxby Chambliss (R)	300,371	61%
	Bob Irvin (R)	132,132	27%
	Robert Brown (R)	59,109	12%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 House (59%); 1998 House (62%); 1996 House (53%); 1994 House (63%)