The Next Senator From Georgia Will Probably be Nuts | Mother Jones

The race to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) is starting to take shape, and it’s looking pretty one-sided. Rep. John Barrow, the Democrats’ most-promising statewide candidate, has already announced he isn’t running. The Republican field is growing. Former Georgia secretary of state Karen Handel, who gained notoriety last summer for attempting to sever the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation’s ties to Planned Parenthood, is reportedly considering a run. David Perdue, the cousin of former Gov. Sonny Perdue, launched an exploratory committee on Wednesday. If they both formally enter the race, they’ll join three candidates who made their intentions clear weeks ago: Reps. Phil Gingrey, Paul Broun, and Jack Kingston.

In their time in the House, the three congressmen have earned reputations as some of the lower chamber’s most conservative members—and also some of the most prone to going completely off the rails. Together, they pushed to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases on the grounds that climate change is a hoax (more on that in a second). They’ve called on the Smithsonian to be investigated (Kingston), proposed personhood for zygotes (Broun) and sought to block the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act (Kingston again).

via The Next Senator From Georgia Will Probably be Nuts | Mother Jones.