Johnny Isakson

John Hardy Isakson (born December 28, 1944) is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Georgia, in office since 2005. A member of the Republican Party, he previously represented Georgia's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2005.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Isakson served in the Georgia Air National Guard (1966–1972) and graduated from the University of Georgia. He opened a real estate branch for Northside Realty and later served 22 years as the company's president. After a failed bid for the Georgia House of Representatives in 1974, he was elected in 1976. He served seven terms, including four as minority leader. Isakson was the Republican candidate for governor of Georgia in 1990, but lost. Two years later, he was elected to the Georgia Senate and served one term. He unsuccessfully ran in the Republican primary in the 1996 U.S. Senate election.

After 6th District Congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich resigned, Isakson ran in the February 1999 special election to succeed him, winning by a 40-point margin. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004 after Democratic incumbent Zell Miller opted not to run for re-election. With the backing of much of Georgia's Republican establishment, he won both the primary and general elections by wide margins. He is serving his third term after winning re-election to the Senate in 2016. He became the senior Senator when Saxby Chambliss retired in 2015. On August 28, 2019, citing his deteriorating health, Isakson announced that he would resign from the Senate effective December 31, 2019.

Early life, education, and real estate career
Isakson was born on December 28, 1944, in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Julia (née Baker) and Edwin Andrew Isakson, a Greyhound bus driver, who later established an Atlanta real estate firm. His paternal grandparents were of Swedish descent, and his paternal grandfather was born in Östersund. His mother is of mostly British ancestry, and her family has been in the American South since the colonial era. He received an honorary degree in Doctor of Laws from Oglethorpe University in 2009.

He currently lives in the nearby suburb of Marietta. He served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966 to 1972, leaving service as a staff sergeant. Isakson enrolled at the University of Georgia, where he became a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon social fraternity. Shortly after graduating from UGA, he opened the first Cobb County office of Northside Realty, a prominent Atlanta-area real estate firm that his father, Ed, helped to establish. Isakson became company president in 1979, a post he held for 22 years, during which Northside became the biggest independent real estate company in the Southeast and one of the largest in America.

Georgia House of Representatives
In 1974, Isakson first ran for the Georgia House of Representatives in an eastern Cobb County district and lost. He ran again in 1976 and won. He served seven terms in the House. He won re-election unopposed in 1984 and 1988. In the last four terms (1983–1990) he was the Republican Minority leader. In 1988, he was Co-Chair for U.S. Senator Bob Dole's presidential primary campaign.

1990 gubernatorial election
He was the Republican candidate for Governor of Georgia in 1990. He won the Republican primary with 74% of the vote in a four candidate field. In the general election, he was defeated by Democratic Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller 53%–45%. His campaign was managed by Jay Morgan while Miller's campaign was managed by James Carville. Miller ran on a pledge to start a state lottery and use the revenue for public schools. Isakson proposed a ballot referendum on the lottery.

Georgia Senate
In 1992, he was elected to the Georgia Senate. In 1996, he decided not to run for re-election to a third term and instead ran for the United States Senate.

1996 U.S. Senate election
In 1996, he ran in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Isakson finished second in the primary election with 35% of the vote, but the winner Guy Millner, a millionaire businessman, failed to get a majority of the vote getting 42%. Therefore, per Georgia law he was forced into a primary runoff election. Millner defeated Isakson in the runoff 53%–47%. Millner lost to Democrat Max Cleland.

In December 1996, Isakson was appointed head of the State Board of Education by Miller.

Elections
In November 1998, 6th District U.S. Congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich faced a revolt in his caucus after the Republicans lost four seats in the midterm elections. Amid the turmoil, Gingrich announced on Friday after the Tuesday elections not only that he would not run for a third term as Speaker, but he would also not take his seat for an eleventh term beginning in January 1999. Isakson ran for the seat in a special election in February. He won the election with 65% of the vote, up forty points ahead of the second-place finisher Christina Fawcett Jeffrey.
 * 1999

He won re-election to his first full term with 75% of the vote.
 * 2000

He won re-election to his second full term with 80% of the vote. In October 2002, Isakson voted in favor of the authorization of force against the country of Iraq. During his tenure in the House of Representatives, Isakson served on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, aiding President Bush in passing the No Child Left Behind Act. As a Representative, Isakson sponsored 27 bills. He was a member of the U.S. House Education Committee.
 * 2002

Elections

 * 2004

In early 2003, conservative Democratic U.S. Senator Zell Miller—who had been appointed to fill out the term of the late Republican Senator Paul Coverdell and elected to the post in his own right in 2000—declared his intention not to run for a full term in the Senate in 2004. Isakson immediately entered the race. He faced 8th District U.S. Congressman Mac Collins and businessman Herman Cain in the primary.

It was initially thought Isakson would face a difficult primary since many socially conservative Republicans still felt chagrin at Isakson's declared support for abortion rights in 1990. However, he won the Republican primary with 53%, with Cain a distant second and Collins third. In the general election, he easily defeated the Democratic candidate, 4th District Congresswoman Denise Majette, by 18 points. Isakson's election marked the first time in Georgia's history that both of the state's U.S. Senate seats had been held by Republicans, as Saxby Chambliss had won the other seat by defeating Nunn's successor, Max Cleland, two years earlier.


 * 2010

In 2010, he was unopposed in the primary. Isakson won re-election with 58% of the vote in 2010, defeating State Commissioner of Labor Mike Thurmond. In 2010, Isakson apologized for referring to voters as "the unwashed" in off-hand comments, saying he "didn't mean anything derogatory by it."

Isakson was re-elected for a third term in 2016. He announced his resignation effective the end of 2019.
 * 2016

Legislation
As a Senator, Isakson has sponsored over 130 bills.

Current committee assignments

 * Committee on Finance
 * Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness
 * Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions and Family Policy
 * Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight
 * Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
 * Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety (Chairman)
 * Committee on Veterans' Affairs (Chairman)
 * Select Committee on Ethics (Chairman)
 * Committee on Foreign Relations
 * Subcommittee on African Affairs
 * Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Political positions
When compared to his Republican peers in the Senate, Isakson is rated as being close to the average level of conservativeness. As of 2014, Isakson had a lifetime rating of 84.25 by the American Conservative Union. He received a "Hero of the Taxpayer" award by Citizens Against Government Waste in 2011. In the first session of the 115th United States Congress, Isakson was ranked the 12th most bipartisan Senator by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by The Lugar Center and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy to assess congressional bipartisanship.

Abortion
Isakson is pro-life, except in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.

Agriculture
In July 2019, Isakson was one of eight senators to introduce the Agricultural Trucking Relief Act, a bill that would alter the definition of an agricultural commodity to include both horticultural and aquacultural products and promote a larger consistency in regulation through both federal and state agencies as part of an attempt to ease regulatory burdens on trucking and the agri-community.

Environment
In 2011, Isakson voted to limit the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013, he voted for a concurrent resolution creating a point of order which would make it harder for Congress to put a price on carbon. In a series of roll call votes attached to debate about the Keystone Pipeline on January 21, 2015, he voted against Amendment 87 by Senator John Hoeven that climate change is real and human activity contributes to climate change, and against Amendment 58 by Senator Brian Schatz, that human activity "significantly" contributes to climate change. In 2015, he voted against the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.

Gun law
Isakson had an "A" rating by the National Rifle Association in 2013.

In 2017, Isakson stated that while he does support concealed carry nationwide, he does not support campus carry, stating that it is "not the appropriate thing to do."

In February 2018, in response to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Isakson stated that "We have to do everything we can within our powers to make sure it never happens again."

Healthcare
Isakson voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and has since voted over 60 times in favor of ending it.

Immigration
Isakson favors tougher border security to address the immigration issue. In 2019, he voted to support President Trump's national emergency declaration.

Personal life
Isakson and his wife, Dianne, have been married since 1968. They have three children and eight grandchildren.

In June 2015, he disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and that the diagnosis would not affect his 2016 re-election plans. On August 28, 2019, Isakson announced that he would resign from his seat in the U.S. Senate effective December 31, 2019 (roughly 3 years prior to the date his term was scheduled to end), citing health reasons.