Georgia: Eighth District

Rep. Jim Marshall (D)

Jim Marshall (D) Elected 2002, 3d term up
Born:	03-31-1948, Ithaca, NY
Home:	Macon
Education:	Princeton U., B.A. 1972, Boston U., J.D. 1977
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Camille)
Elected  Office:	Macon Mayor, 1995-99.
Military Career:	Army, 1968-70 (Vietnam).
Professional Career:	Mercer U. Law Professor, 1979-95, 1999-2002.
DC Office	504 CHOB, 20515 202-225-6531 Fax: 202-225-3013 Website: www.house.gov/marshall
State Offices	Macon:478-464-0255; Tifton:229-556-7418;
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Macon, the hub of central Georgia, is a city proud of its restored houses and its Japanese cherry trees, of which it shows off 20 times as many as Washington, D.C., during its annual International Cherry Blossom Festival. It is the home of music legends Otis Redding, James Brown, Little Richard and the Allman Brothers, and of the Harriet Tubman Historical and Cultural Museum. Surrounding it are the farm and forest lands of central Georgia. Much of this land was the site of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1864 march from Atlanta to the sea. To the east, Twiggs and Wilkinson Counties have been among the world’s major sources of kaolin, a clay used for china and ceramics. A short drive north on Interstate 75 is Juliette, an old mill town that’s too small for most maps; it is the place where many scenes in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes were filmed.

The 8th Congressional District of Georgia includes all of Macon and Bibb County and stretches about 200 miles north and south, from fast-growing Newton County in metro Atlanta to Colquitt County nearly at the Florida border. About one-half of its votes are cast in the five-county Macon metro area. With its Air Logistics Center and repair site for the F-22 Raptor, the Warner Robins Air Force Base and the surrounding city of Warner Robins have grown significantly in recent years. This was Democratic country from the time of Sherman’s march until the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Today the political balance is different. More than 70% of whites usually vote Republican; about 90% of blacks usually vote Democratic. So the political leanings of any district in this part of Georgia depend on the racial percentages.

Redistricters in 2005 significantly changed this district with the goal of increasing the prospect of electing a Republican. The seat was renumbered from the 3d to the 8th District, and its shape was elongated to add unfamiliar territory, much of it Republican. Slightly more than half of the population is new to the district and the new lines reduced the black population from 40% to 33%. The result was to increase President Bush’s 2004 performance in this district from 55% to 61%.

The congressman from the 8th District is Jim Marshall, first elected in 2002. The son and grandson of Army generals, he grew up at several Army posts. He graduated from high school in Mobile, Alabama, and went on to Princeton but interrupted his education to enlist in the Army and volunteer for infantry combat in Vietnam. He served there in the elite Airborne Ranger reconnaissance platoon, was wounded in combat and awarded two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart. After military service, he graduated from Princeton and Boston University Law School. He joined the faculty of Mercer University law school in Macon, practiced business law and became active in Democratic politics. His wife Camille is a federal bankruptcy trustee. In his first political contest, Marshall was elected mayor of Macon in 1995. He made his first run for Congress in 2000 against Saxby Chambliss in the old 8th District (that was 3 maps ago in Georgia). He campaigned almost exclusively on prescription drugs for seniors, and lost 59%-41%.

When Democrats redrew the district, Marshall quickly entered the contest and made his military experience the centerpiece of his 2002 campaign. Against three opponents in the Democratic primary, his toughest competitor was politically-connected attorney Chuck Byrd, whose father Garland Byrd was lieutenant governor from 1959–63. Byrd ran as a conservative in the Sam Nunn tradition and as an opponent of abortion, but Marshall carried Bibb County solidly and won 54% of the total vote, enough to avoid a runoff. In the general election, Marshall faced Bibb County Commissioner Calder Clay, an energetic fundraiser who claimed Marshall was too liberal for the district. Marshall kept emphasizing his military record; Clay had not served in the military. Both supported George W. Bush on Iraq, but they differed on abortion and Social Security. Each candidate got a pledge of a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. In one of 2002’s closest contests, Clay carried most of the eastern counties and the Warner Robins area. But Marshall won 61%-39% in Bibb County and 50.5%-49.5% overall.

In the House, Marshall has cast a moderate voting record that placed him virtually at the center of the chamber. It didn’t take long for him to get noticed in the Democratic Caucus. In March 2003, on the day after hostilities began in Iraq, Marshall showed up, uninvited, to a press conference convened by a group of anti-war House Democrats. “The time for debate is past,” he announced. He then invoked an obscure House rule to cancel a Democratic Caucus meeting organized to debate war alternatives. After a September 2003 visit to Iraq, he criticized news coverage of the war for focusing disproportionately on the coalition’s “death, mistakes and setbacks.” He said the “Pentagon's version is far closer to reality” than the media's portrayal. In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion article, he urged Democrats to “carefully avoid using the language of failure” which he said could be “unforgivably self-fulfilling.” The following Christmas, he secretly returned to Iraq to visit some of the most dangerous areas, observe the conditions, and thank U.S. soldiers. Three times, he has spent Christmas with the Army Chief of Staff and troops in Iraq. An increasingly lonely voice among Democrats, he continued to support the war. In November 2005, he was the only Democrat to vote against Nancy Pelosi’s resolution for a “thorough investigation of…abuses relating to the Iraq war.” In January 2007, he said that U.S. and Iraqi forces were having success in reducing insurgent activity. A month later, he was one of two Democrats voting against a resolution condemning the military surge in Iraq. He called the proposal “akin to sitting on the sidelines and booing in the middle of our own team’s play, because we don’t like the coach’s call.”

Marshall avidly backed “concurrent receipt” legislation to permit veterans to receive full retirement pay plus disability compensation at the same time; within months, Republicans took up and passed a modified version. In 2005, he turned his attention to another inequity for veterans: an 1891 law that required a dollar-for-dollar offset for those receiving both retirement pay and disability compensation. He voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Unusual in the House, he sits on three major committees: Agriculture, Armed Services and Financial Services.

In 2004, Marshall turned down pleas from national and state Democrats to run for the Senate seat left open by Zell Miller's retirement. Instead, he faced a rematch with Calder Clay. Marshall was the only Democratic candidate endorsed by Miller, who called him “the kind of Democrat we need to keep in Washington.” In an unexpectedly strong showing, Marshall won 63%-37%; he won 74%-26% in Bibb County, which cast 20% of the vote. But the March 2005 redistricting gave Marshall new headaches and cause to think about running statewide. In 2006, Republicans nominated former Congressman Mac Collins, who served six terms before running unsuccessfully in 2004 for the Republican Senate nomination. Marshall, with the advantage of greater name recognition in the Macon area, ran against “extremists on both sides.” Collins ran ads criticizing him for support of food stamps to illegal immigrants. The result was one of the closest in the nation and took a week before it became official: Marshall won by 1,752 votes. His margin of victory came in Bibb, which he took 63%-37%. Collins won 11 of the 21 counties, including Houston and most of the counties to the north. Some Republicans criticized the national party for failing to spend more money on the contest.

In 2007, Senate Democrats encouraged Marshall to challenge Saxby Chambliss for reelection in 2008. In the district, Republican Rick Goddard, the former commander of the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center at Robins Air Force Base who was heavily recruited by the National Republican Congressional Committee, announced he will run against Marshall in 2008. But Goddard might face a primary challenge from Mac Collins, who has said he is considering a rematch. 

Committees

• Agriculture (9th of 25 D)
  Specialty Crops, Rural Development & Foreign Agriculture; General Farm Commodities & Risk Management.
• Armed Services (17th of 34 D)
  Terrorism, Unconventional Threats & Capabilities; Readiness; Air & Land Forces.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 3
• Area size: 7,239 square miles
• Urban Population: 56.6%
• Rural Population: 43.4%
• Population 2000: 629,728
• Population 2005 (est):
• Median Income: $36,294
• Poverty Status: 15.8%
• Military Veterans: 14.0%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 62.9% White; 32.4% Black; 0.8% Asian; 0.2% Native Am.; 0.0% Hawaiian; 0.8% Two+ races; 0.1% Other; 2.8% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 15.4% USA%; 6.6% English%; 5.9% Irish%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 31.2%; White collar 52.8%; Gray collar 16.0%;