For a good two years, Saxby Chambliss tried to bring senators from both parties together to lasso the federal government’s long-term budget problems.
They trampled on political convention, were shunned by party leaders and failed to even write a bill. Yet in Chambliss’ mind – and one day, he hopes, history’s – it was a success for building a foundation for a future deal.
The Georgia Republican is leaving office after 12 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years in the House, a time marked by partisan dysfunction that Chambliss often tried to puncture over bottles of red wine.
He will be remembered as an affable companion to fellow senators, a national security hawk, an advocate for Georgia farmers amid a tide of decreasing federal support, a politician who sometimes took stands unpopular with his party’s base.
The latter is certainly true of Chambliss and Virginia Democrat Mark Warner’s Gang of Six, which sought a way to bring down future deficits through cuts in discretionary spending and entitlement programs, along with increases in tax revenue.
“Saxby helped make it safe for folks to work together,” Warner said. “He had bona fide conservative credentials, as well as just great relationships.”
Those credentials were questioned by conservatives such as anti-tax guru Grover Norquist. Though the senators recruited dozens of allies in support of their outline, Democratic and Republican leaders did not buy in and it never had a path to a vote.
Since those heady days of 2011, Congress has imposed strict “sequestration” budget cuts on federal agencies. Leaders in both parties are talking seriously about streamlining the tax code. And Chambliss said Senate Republicans are talking about setting up a bipartisan commission to force votes on changes to Social Security — fashioned after the Base Realignment and Closure system.
“If we had not done what we did, you wouldn’t be hearing that conversation,” Chambliss said last month during a lengthy interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in his nearly boxed-up Washington office.
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In 1992, Chambliss, then an agriculture lawyer in Moultrie, lost his first bid for Congress in a Republican primary.
Two years later, he won, joining fellow Georgian Newt Gingrich’s wave to Republican control of Congress. Once in the House, he formed a tight-knit dinner group with fellow Republicans John Boehner of Ohio, Tom Latham of Iowa and Richard Burr of North Carolina.
They are still close nearly two decades later, even as Boehner is now speaker of the House and Burr joined Chambliss in the Senate. The secret to their long-lasting friendship over many Capitol Hill dinners, golf games and shared family vacations: very little shop talk.
“It makes those unbearable days in Washington more bearable,” Burr said.
In 2002, Chambliss decided to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Max Cleland. A triple-amputee veteran of the Vietnam War who had served as Georgia’s secretary of state for 14 years before his one term in the Senate, Cleland was seen as tough to beat.
But Chambliss set out to paint Cleland as a liberal Democrat at a time when Georgia was decisively turning red.
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks provided a potent backdrop to the campaign. As the work to create the Department of Homeland Security was underway, Cleland cast several committee votes siding with labor unions’ wishes for the new department over President George W. Bush’s desire to have unchecked power to hire and fire agency workers.
In a television ad, Chambliss used those votes to accuse Cleland of misleading voters about his support of Bush, opening with images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The advertisement was roundly criticized as an attack on Cleland's patriotism — even as Chambliss had faced accusations of draft dodging.
Chambliss won the race by 7 percentage points. A dozen years have not healed the raw feelings, and the two have not reconciled.
“That ad is so mild today compared to what’s being run everywhere else,” Chambliss said.
“He ran tough ads against me. It’s a tough business. He never responded to it — never — because he couldn’t. I was telling the truth. He was never responding to any of the ads we ran. … No, I have no regrets about that campaign.”
Cleland, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
In the Senate, Chambliss launched himself into agriculture and military issues — two tent poles for the state’s economy. He became chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee within two years of his arrival, a nearly unheard-of feat.
He had a hand in several farm bills, an always controversial mix of farm subsidies and nutrition programs. The 2008 Farm Bill moved farmers away from direct cash payments based on target prices toward a more insurance-based model.
Chambliss recalled a trip to Tifton to explain the bill.
“I showed up and there were about 1,000 farmers there and they were all mad as hell,” Chambliss said. “And after I talked, they said, ‘You know, I think he’s right.’ They adapted.”
Farm subsidies were one of several areas in which Chambliss ran into persistent trouble with his party’s conservative base, which saw them as government largess.
Chambliss’ early support for a 2007 immigration bill earned him boos at the state Republican convention. (Chambliss ended up voting against it.) His vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program amid the 2008 economic free fall became a flash point in that year’s campaign.
“Senator Chambliss was seen as a person that will toe the company line, so to speak,” said Debbie Dooley, a conservative activist who was among those booing Chambliss in 2007 and later helped found the Atlanta Tea Party. “He would do whatever Republican leadership wanted him to do, whatever big business wanted him to do.”
A lack of conservative enthusiasm was one reason Democrat Jim Martin forced a general election runoff against Chambliss in 2008, though Martin also benefited from a surge in African-American voters for President Barack Obama. Many Obama voters did not return for the runoff, which Chambliss won easily.
Chambliss said he would vote for TARP again, given the economy's dire moment and the fact that the banks repaid the loans. In recounting conversations with angry activists who don't believe him that the government made money on TARP loans to banks, Chambliss betrayed his weariness of politicking.
“Now,” he said, “I don’t have to worry about that.”
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said Chambliss will be remembered for a willingness to cross rigid lines.
“Maybe he goes down as being willing to take an unpopular stance,” Bullock said.
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Throughout his career, Chambliss’ work included intelligence issues, and he was the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee for his final four years.
In that role he has been privy to some of the nation’s most closely held secrets — Chambliss was one of the first to learn of bin Laden’s killing — and has been a major public defender of the nation’s intelligence apparatus.
It has been less easy to defend intelligence practices as 9/11 recedes further and more information comes out about what the government has done. Some key Republicans have even started to question programs to monitor U.S. citizens’ telephone “metadata” and other snooping.
Chambliss has defended the tactics as crucial to identifying and foiling terrorism.
“For me, Saxby’s legacy alone is in the betterment of the way in which we gather intelligence in the contemporary mechanisms of the digital world,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, a fellow Georgia Republican.
One of Chambliss' final big moments in office was the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report on post-9/11 CIA interrogations, replete with references to "rectal feeding" and simulated drowning, known as waterboarding.
Chambliss sparred with committee Democrats for years on the report’s conclusions and release. He put out his own staff’s rebuttal, calling the program legal and effective, and said the CIA addressed any abuses in a self-reckoning.
He gave a 23-minute floor speech attacking the conclusions and methodology of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the committee's chairwoman.
The next day, Feinstein was on the Senate floor singing Chambliss' praises after his farewell speech and discussing fond memories of their lengthy partnership.
Many in the parade of colleagues spoke of sharing glasses of wine, of how Chambliss' personable nature allowed him to bridge divides, or of his strong golf game. Among Chambliss' achievements on the links: A hole-in-one while playing with Obama last year.
Burr said his pal’s golf game will no doubt improve with retirement, but Chambliss said he is going to stay active in policy. He plans to join a downtown Atlanta law firm, lecture at the University of Georgia and likely work on a contract basis for the CIA — a chance to keep his top secret clearance.
Most of all, he wants to perpetuate his views, even if he no longer holds office.
“I don’t know who may be the next president, but I would hope I would have an opportunity to engage and help them formulate their ideas on national security,” Chambliss said. “I’m not interested in coming up here and going to work, but I think the knowledge I’ve got is going to be beneficial for years to come.”
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