ATLANTA — Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican who embodied an old-school kind of congenial politics and served the state in the U.S. Senate for nearly 15 years, has died at the age of 76.
Isakson was days shy of his 77th birthday. In a tweet, The Isakson Initiative said his family is "grateful for the prayers and support" and that his funeral arrangements will be shared once they are finalized.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Isakson's death in a statement and said, "Georgia has lost one of its greatest statesmen, and a servant leader dedicated to making his state and country better than he found it."
Isakson had been battling Parkinson’s Disease for more than a half decade, revealing his diagnosis in 2015. He stepped down from his Senate seat with two years to go in his term, at the end of 2019, as the illness took its toll physically.
Isakson held public office for more than four decades, a political lifer who made his reputation as a bridge-builder and dealmaker, the kind of lawmaker lamented as a dying breed in today’s political climate.
When he stepped down from the Senate in 2019, he espoused bipartisanship as a “way you live, a state of being,” a way, he said, “you accomplish things.”
“Most people who call people names and point fingers are people that don’t have a solution themselves, they just want to make damn sure you don’t solve it,” he said.
When he stepped down, he was hailed by Republican and Democrat alike.
The late Congressman John Lewis called him a “special man” and a “good man” whom he considered a “friend and a brother.” Georgia’s former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes said he was the “last of a kind” and said, “I very seldom heard anybody - and never a Democrat - say anything bad about Johnny Isakson.”’
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the senior figure in Republican Senatorial politics, said on his retirement that “if the Senate were to hold a secret-ballot popularity contest, Johnny Isakson would win in a bipartisan landslide.”
“He commands bipartisan respect and affection to a degree that is remarkable,” McConnell said then.
But he said it made sense for a man whose motto was: “There are only two kinds of people: Friends… and future friends.”
As a lawmaker, his signature pieces of legislation touched on issues with broad appeal – he sponsored the VA MISSION Act of 2018, which helped improve healthcare access for veterans, and the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011, which addressed the risks of sexual assault for Peace Corps volunteers.
Speaking to the respect he had among his peers, Isakson was the rare senator to chair two committees at once - the Ethics Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee, from 2015-2019.
“Bipartisan doesn't mean a Democrat or Republican talk to each other once in a while. It means that two people come together. Probably have differences. Probably have a lot of differences. But they find a way to get to the end of the trail, where there is a possibility of a solution," he said in his final Senate floor speech in 2019. “Whether you're Black or white, Republican or Democrat, whatever it might be, find a way to find common ground.”
Born Dec. 28, 1944 in Atlanta, John Hardy “Johnny” Isakson was the son of Julia and Edwin Isakson, a bus driver who later found his footing in real estate. He was a 1966 graduate of the University of Georgia, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and set up a real estate shop of his own in Cobb County. He served in the Georgia Air National Guard until 1972.
Isakson married his wife, Dianne, in 1968, with whom he had three children.
He made his first run for office in 1974 for a Georgia House of Representatives seat but lost. In what would become a recurring theme in his political life, he was successful two years later, however.
Isakson wound up serving in the state House for more than a decade before he launched a campaign for governor in 1990. He was the House Minority Leader for eight years before he vacated his seat for the run at the governor’s mansion.
He lost that race to former Gov. Zell Miller, but would, as once previously, come back two years later.
He returned in 1992 with a run for state senator, which he won. He served a single four-year term and then set his sights on the U.S Senate.
Once again, his first bid would prove unsuccessful, as he lost the Republican primary to Guy Millner (who would lose the Senate race to Democrat Max Cleland). And once again, in two years he was back at it.
When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned following disastrous results for the Republicans in the 1998 mid-terms, Isakson stepped up in the special election and was elected to represent the 6th District in the U.S. House.
He served three terms, before he ran in 2004 to succeed Miller – who’d once defeated him for governor – as a Georgia senator, in what would be the defining role of his career.
A testament to his political perseverance and knack for winning people over, Isakson stands as the only Georgian to have served in the state House, state Senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate.