Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) Elected 2004, 1st term up 2010
Born:	Dec. 28, 1944, Atlanta
Home:	Marietta
Education:	U. of GA, B.B.A. 1966
Religion:	Methodist
Marital Status:	married (Dianne)
Elected  Office:	GA House of Reps., 1976-90, Repub. Ldr., 1983-90; GA gubernatorial candidate, 1990; GA Senate, 1993-96; U.S. House of Reps., 1999-2004.
Military Career:	GA Air Natl. Guard, 1966-72.
Professional Career:	Northside Realty, 1967-99, Pres., 1979-99; Co-chair, Dole GA presidential campaign, 1988, 1996; Chmn., GA Board of Ed., 1997.
DC Office	120 RSOB20510, 202-224-3643; Fax: 202-228-0724; Web site: isakson.senate.gov
State Offices	Atlanta, 770-661-0999.
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Johnny Isakson, a Republican, was elected Georgia's junior senator in 2004. Isakson grew up outside Atlanta, in south Fulton County; his father drove a Greyhound bus and his parents bought old houses, renovated them and sold them for a profit. Isakson graduated from the University of Georgia and served in the Air National Guard. He went to work for Northside Realty in 1967 and eventually became president of the firm. He volunteered for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972, and in 1974 he ran for the state House as a Republican and lost. In 1976 he ran again and won, and in 1983 became Minority Leader. He ran for governor in 1990 and lost 53%-45% to Zell Miller. Two years later he was elected to the state Senate. In 1996 he ran statewide again, and lost the Republican runoff for senator to self-financing businessman Guy Millner, who lost in November to Max Cleland 49%-48%. In December 1996 Miller appointed Isakson head of the state Board of Education. His partisan political career seemed over, but it would be revived by two timely retirements.

In November 1998 Newt Gingrich announced that he was stepping down as Speaker and would resign from the House. That opened up a vacancy in the heavily Republican 6th District which included much of the northern suburbs plus Atlanta's affluent Buckhead neighborhood. Isakson was by far the best known of the six candidates in the February 1999 nonpartisan election. He raised $1 million and spent $500,000 of his own money and won the seat with 65% of the vote, to 25% for Christina Jeffrey, a local history professor whom Gingrich had hired and then fired as House historian. In the House Isakson served on the Transportation Committee, where he pushed for a rapid transit line for the overburdened Georgia 400 corridor on the north side and talked up high-speed rail service from Atlanta to Richmond. On the Education Committee he was named to the Web-Based Education Commission and took a leading role in negotiations of the No Child Left Behind Act, working to give schools more discretion in using funds. Committee Chairman John Boehner credited Isakson for the provision requiring that 25% of technology funds be used for teacher classroom training.

Isakson passed up a chance to run against Cleland in 2002, but when Zell Miller announced his retirement in January 2003, Isakson announced for the seat a week later. For months he had no well-known opponent but eventually he had two serious competitors in the Republican primary. One was Herman Cain, who grew up in a black neighborhood in Atlanta, worked for Pillsbury and Burger King, then became CEO and owner of Omaha-based Godfather's Pizza. In 1994, as president of the National Restaurant Association, Cain attended one of Bill Clinton's meetings on health care and denounced the Clinton plan. Afterwards he left the company, became a motivational speaker and returned to Atlanta. The other was Congressman Mac Collins of the 8th District, which includes the southern edge of metro Atlanta and some still mostly rural and small town counties to the south. Cain and Collins were both solid conservatives and abortion rights opponents, and they made abortion a major issue. During the primary, Isakson said he opposed abortion rights except in cases of incest, rape or to save the mother's life; he received an 82% rating from the National Right to Life Committee in the 108th Congress. But he had voted against the Mexico City policy preventing foreign aid money from funding abortions, in favor of importation of RU-486 and to allow servicewomen to have abortions at their own expense in military hospitals. He had a reputation as an abortion rights supporter: in the 1996 Senate primary, he irked religious conservatives when he appeared in a TV ad opposing a constitutional amendment banning abortion, saying, "I will not vote to amend the Constitution to make criminals of women and their doctors. I trust my wife, my daughter and the women of Georgia to make the right choices."

That may have made him unacceptable in a Republican primary then; it was not so disqualifying in 2004. Isakson had taken care to keep in friendly touch with religious conservatives. In 2004 he was endorsed by a former president of the Georgia Christian Coalition and the current president predicted the anti-abortion vote would be divided between the three candidates. His opponents nonetheless attacked him on the issue. Collins called him "a certified moderate," and Cain, in a TV spot, said, "There's a big difference between me and Johnny Isakson. And it's not just the color of our eyes." Cain also backed a consumption tax and individual investment accounts in Social Security; Collins criticized Isakson for favoring an extension of the date for the turnover of sovereignty in Iraq. Isakson called for staying the course in Iraq, tax reform and support of Bush judicial nominees. He favored pushing ahead with the base closing commission and opposed a guest worker program that would put illegal immigrants ahead of legal ones on the way to citizenship. One of the big differences between the candidates was money. With his business contacts, Isakson raised $5.5 million for the primary; Cain spent $3 million, much of it his own money and Collins only $1.9 million. Between May and the July 20 primary, Isakson was on the air, mostly with biographical spots.

Early on, most observers thought this race would end with a runoff. But Isakson got 53% of the vote to 26% for Cain and 21% for Collins. It was not just an Atlanta area victory: Isakson won 55% in metro Atlanta and 52% in the rest of the state. Moreover, this was the first state primary in which more Georgians chose the Republican ballot (650,000) over the Democratic (625,000). Indeed, Georgia Democrats had a hard time coming up with a candidate for a seat held by a Democrat--albeit, one who usually voted with Republicans in the Senate and supported George W. Bush for reelection. The Democratic race came down to two late entering candidates, 4th District Congresswoman Denise Majette and businessman Cliff Oxford. Both had their weaknesses. Majette had served just one term after her upset victory over Cynthia McKinney in the 2002 primary, and she had a solidly liberal voting record. Oxford was accused of spousal abuse by a former wife, though she supported his candidacy. Oxford spent $1 million of his own money, but in a primary in which a majority of votes appear to have been cast by blacks, Majette led 41%-21%. In the August runoff Majette won 59%-41%. In both contests Majette had big leads in metro Atlanta but ran behind in the rest of the state--not a good harbinger for November.

This was one of the two 2004 Senate races which the in party expected to lose (the other was Illinois, where Republican Peter Fitzgerald retired). Zell Miller, as he had promised in January 2003, backed neither candidate; he had appointed Majette to a judgeship in 1993 and Isakson as head of the Board of Education in 1996. Through most of the fall Isakson continued to run positive ads; in the last two weeks he attacked Majette's liberal voting record, including her vote against the $87 billion supplemental appropriation for Iraq. Majette criticized Isakson for not voting the funding the full amounts authorized by No Child Left Behind. It was no surprise when Isakson won 58%-40%, almost exactly the same margin by which George W. Bush beat John Kerry in the state. Majette carried only 19 of 159 counties--Atlanta's Fulton County and the two black-majority counties in metro Atlanta, the counties including the central cities of Athens, Columbus and Augusta and 12 Black Belt rural counties.

Committees

• Environment & Public Works: Clean Air, Climate Change & Nuclear Safety; Superfund & Waste Management.
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Education & Early Childhood Development; Employment & Workplace Safety (Chmn.); Retirement Security & Aging.
• Small Business & Entrepreneurship.
• Veterans' Affairs.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	5	0	0	0	88	78	100	95	84	92	--
2003	5	--	0	5	--	65	100	88	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	31%	--	68%		9%	--	91%
Social	24%	--	71%		28%	--	72%
Foreign	0%	--	89%		17%	--	83%
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. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. DC School Vouchers Y 6. Ban Human Cloning Y		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Johnny Isakson (R)	1,864,202	58%	$8,038,200
	Denise Majette (D)	1,287,690	40%	$2,391,248
	Other	69,089	2%
2004 primary	Johnny Isakson (R)	346,670	53%
	Herman Cain (R)	170,370	26%
	Mac Collins (R)	133,952	21%
2000 special	Zell Miller (D)	1,413,224	58%	$2,533,746
	Mack Mattingly (R)	920,478	38%	$1,093,408
	Other	94,540	4%
Prior winning percentages: 2002 House (80%); 2000 House (75%); 1999 House (65%)