Denise Majette
| Denise Majette | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 4th district |
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In office January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2005 |
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| Preceded by | Cynthia McKinney |
| Succeeded by | Cynthia McKinney |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
May 18, 1955 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Alma mater |
Yale University Duke University |
Denise L. Majette (born May 18, 1955) is an American politician from the state of Georgia. A Democrat, she represented Georgia's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2003 to 2005.
Born in Brooklyn, she attended Yale University and completed a Juris Doctor degree at Duke University in 1979. She began her legal career in North Carolina as a Legal Aid staff attorney and a clinical adjunct law professor at Wake Forest University. A resident of the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain since 1983, Majette worked in private law practice before being named an administrative law judge at the Georgia state board of workers' compensation in 1992. The following year, Georgia Governor Zell Miller appointed her judge of the State Court of DeKalb County. Majette held the judgeship for nine years.
She resigned from the judgeship in 2002 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Georgia's 4th congressional district, which is based in DeKalb County. In a major upset, she defeated 10-year incumbent Cynthia McKinney in the Democratic primary. McKinney had attracted controversy due to her comments after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and her reported backing by Muslim-American groups, which she had said was racial profiling. The primary was also influenced by crossover-Republicans—i.e., Republicans who used their ability to vote in a Democratic caucus in Georgia. Majette, who had never run in a partisan contest before, trounced the seemingly entrenched McKinney by a 58% to 42% margin. Majette's upset win was tantamount to election in this heavily Democratic, black-majority district.
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