GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson’s resignation announcement, which came about four years after he announced that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, marks the end of a long career in politics that coincided with the GOP’s rise to power in Georgia, a state that Democrats had controlled since the end of Reconstruction. Isakson was first elected to the state House on his second try in 1976, the same year that former Democratic Gov. Jimmy Carter was elected president, and he was one of just 24 Republicans in what was a 182-member chamber at the time.
Isakson became minority leader after the 1982 elections, and he held that post until he ran for governor in 1990. However, he lost that contest 53-45 against Democrat Lt. Gov. Zell Miller, who would have his own long and memorable career. Isakson was elected to the state Senate two years later but left the legislature again in 1996 to run for an open U.S. Senate seat. This time, though, he lost the GOP primary runoff by a 53-47 margin to Guy Millner, who had nearly cost Miller re-election as governor in 1994; Millner would narrowly lose the general election to Democrat Max Cleland.
Isakson bounced back again in 1997 when his old rival Miller appointed him to the state Board of Education. Isakson got another chance to seek a promotion in 1999 in a special election to succeed former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who had also just resigned from Congress. Isakson decisively won the all-party primary for what was a safely red seat in the northern Atlanta suburbs with 65% of the vote, and he didn’t have any trouble holding it over the next two elections.
Isakson once again ran for the Senate in 2004 when Miller, who had been appointed to the chamber in 2000, decided not to seek a full term. In 2002, Republicans had taken control of both the governorship and state Senate for the first time since Reconstruction and also flipped the other U.S. Senate seat, so there was little question that the GOP nominee would prevail.