Wyche Fowler

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Wyche Fowler
United States Senator from Georgia
In office January 5, 1987 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Mack F. Mattingly
Succeeded by	Paul D. Coverdell
Born	October 6 1940 ( 1940-10-06) (age 67) Atlanta, Georgia
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic

William Wyche Fowler, Jr. (born October 6, 1940) is an American politician and ambassador. He is a member of the Democratic Party and served as U.S. Senator from Georgia from January 1987 to January 1993. He had previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 until his senatorial election.

Fowler was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Davidson College, and then entered the U.S. Army as an intelligence operative. After discharge, he returned to school to earn a law degree from Emory University. From 1965 to 1966, he became the chief of staff for Congressman Charles Weltner, and after holding this post for two years, he resigned to become a private attorney. From 1974 to 1977, he served as an Atlanta City Councilman, and he used this position as a stepping stone to the House. On April 5, 1977 he was elected in a special election to the U.S. House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by Andrew Young's resignation.

In 1986, as a U.S. Representative, Fowler defeated the incumbent Republican Senator Mack Mattingly. Fowler served as the junior senator from Georgia (Sam Nunn was the serving senior senator at that time). Fowler's voting record was liberal on social concerns and moderate on economic and national security issues. He lost his re-election bid in 1992 to Georgia State Senator Paul Coverdell (who would later become leader of the state's Republican party). Fowler won a plurality of the vote against Coverdell on general election night 1992, but Georgia law requires a runoff election between the two candidates with the highest vote totals if no one candidate receives 50 percent (an absolute majority) of the total vote, and a Libertarian Party candidate received enough votes to keep Fowler's total below 50 percent-plus-one. In the runoff on November 11, 1992, Coverdell upset Fowler by a narrow margin. Fowler went on to serve as the Clinton administration's United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001.

[edit] External links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• New Georgia Encyclopedia

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