John Nathan Deal is a politician from the United States. Since January 2011, he has been the 82nd Governor of Georgia. Deal went to Mercer University in Macon and got his law degree. He was a captain in the U.S. Army for a few years at Fort Gordon in Augusta before going into private practice as an attorney in Gainesville. In 1970, he was hired as an assistant district attorney in northeast Georgia. The next year, he was appointed as a juvenile court judge in Hall County, a job he held until 1972. When he first got into politics, he was a Democrat from the 49th district of Georgia and served in the Senate from 1981 to 1993. In January 1993, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 9th congressional district as a Democrat. In April 1995, he switched to the Republican Party. He was in the U.S. Congress for a total of 9 terms, which was 17 years. During this time, he rose to chair the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee. In August 2010, he was chosen as the Republican candidate for Georgia’s gubernatorial election that year. In November 2010, he won the election, continuing the trend of Georgians voting for the Republican Party. On January 10, 2011, he took over as Governor of Georgia from Sonny Perdue. The deal was re-elected in 2014, and the same thing happened. He is still working to make the state and its people better.
Early years and childhood
He was born in Millen, Georgia, on August 25, 1942. His parents, Noah J. Deal and Mary Mallard were both teachers.
Deal grew up on a farm in the Georgia town of Sandersville, which is in the county of Washington. He went to school at Mercer University in Macon, where he got his degree in 1964.
In 1966, he got a Juris Doctor degree from the “Walter F. George School of Law” at Mercer University.
Nathan Deal’s Career
After getting his law degree, he joined the United States Army. From 1966 to 1968, he was a Captain at Fort Gordon in Augusta. After that, he went into private practice as an attorney, which he did for 23 years. He also worked as a lawyer for the government.
In 1970, he was put in charge of northeast Georgia as an assistant district attorney.
In 1971, he got his first job as a judge when he was put in charge of the juvenile court in Hall County. He was in the job until 1972. He was also a superior court judge for the North-eastern Judicial Circuit.
He took over Howard Overby’s seat in the Georgia Senate from the 49th district on January 3, 1981. He was a Democrat. He was in charge until January 3, 1993. In November 1990, the Democratic Party chose him to be President Pro Tempore, which is the second-highest position in the chamber.
On January 3, 1993, he replaced Ed Jenkins in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 9th district. He did this as a Democrat.
He joined the Republican Party on April 11, 1995, after the party took control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.
He was re-elected to the U.S. Congress eight more times, the first time as a Republican in 1996. In 1998, 2002, and 2004, he was re-elected without any opposition.
In 2003, the district he worked for went from 9th to 10th, but it got its old number back in 2006. According to the records, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 9th district from January 3, 1993, to January 3, 2003, and from January 3, 2003, to January 3, 2007, and from January 3, 2007, to March 21, 2010.
During his 17 years in Congress, he moved forward and led the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, showing that he was a strong leader in health care policy and entitlement reform.
He started H.R. 698, the Citizen Reform Act, which would take away birthright citizenship for people who are in the US illegally but were born there.
In March 2010, he gave his notice and focused on running for Georgia Governor. But before he moved to Georgia, he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in Congress for the last time.
In 2010, Sonny Perdue, who was the Republican Governor of Georgia at the time, couldn’t run again because he had reached the limit on the number of terms he could serve. In the Republican primary, there was a race between 7 candidates.
Since no candidate won the primary outright in July of that year, there was a very close run-off between Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who came in first in the primary with 34% of the vote, and Deal, who came in second with 23% of the vote. This took place on August 10, 2010. Deal won by only 2519 votes in a race that was very close.
In the general election, Deal beat out the former governor and state senator Roy Barne, who was running as a Democrat, and John Monds, who was running as a Libertarian. Deal won with 53 percent of the vote on November 2, 2010. On January 10, 2011, he was sworn in as the 82nd Governor of Georgia. That year, there were a lot of protests and threats, but he still signed HB 87 into law, which gave Georgia more power to stop illegal immigration.
As Governor, he set up Competitiveness Initiatives, changed the education system to meet the needs of the workforce, and changed the tax code, all of which helped the state become one of the best places in the US to do business.
He also put a lot of focus on education and child safety, cut the number of people working for the state government and taxes, kept HOPE from going bankrupt, pushed for more public safety on waterways, and put strict rules on lobbying to build public trust, among other things.
On April 25, 2013, he signed HB 349 into law. This was a step toward changing the way criminal justice works. With the help of the Council and the Vera Institute of Justice, he made wide-ranging performance measures to find out how effective earlier strategies for reforming criminals were.
This was done to make sure that these steps both made the public safer and saved taxpayers money. Later, on April 25, 2014, he announced the creation of the Interfaith Council of Governor, which will be made up of religious leaders from the state and will work to make the recent changes to criminal justice even bigger.
In the primary election for governor in 2014, Deal beat out two other candidates. He then ran against Democratic State Senator Jason Carter in the general election. He beat Carter and got 53% of the vote, so he was re-elected as Governor of Georgia for a second term.
Personal History and Legacies
He got married to Sandra Dunagan, who had graduated from Milledgeville’s Georgia College and State University. Sandra did a lot to help kids get a better education, and she still does this as the First Lady of Georgia. She is the Chair of the Governor’s Office for Children and Families and the Co-Chair of the Georgia Children’s Cabinet.
As First Lady, she also helps the community and does volunteer work.
They have a son named Jason and three daughters named Katie, Carrie, and Mary Emily.
Estimated Net worth
Nathan is on the list of the most popular and wealthiest politicians. Based on what we’ve found on Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider, Nathan Deal has a net worth of about $1.5 million.