Tillie Kidd Fowler (December 23, 1942 – March 2, 2005) was an American lawyer and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from Florida's 4th congressional district from 1993 to 2001. Her father and brother served as state legislators in Georgia. A Republican moderate, she was a strong advocate for defense spending. Early life and education Tillie Kidd was born in Milledgeville, Georgia on December 23, 1942. Her father, Culver Kidd Jr., served in the Georgia General Assembly for 46 years, including 16 years in the state house and 30 in the state senate. Her brother, Rusty Kidd, served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2009 to 2017. She graduated from Salem Academy in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1960 before earning her undergraduate degree from Emory University, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, in 1964. She earned a law degree from the Emory University School of Law three years later. Her father had encouraged her to attend law school because she was a fairly outspoken woman by the standards of the time. She was admitted to the bar soon after getting her degree. No Atlanta-area law firm would hire a woman at the time, but U.S. Representative Robert G. Stephens Jr. of Georgia hired her as a legislative assistant for three years. She then worked as general counsel in the White House Office of Consumer Affairs until 1971. In 1971, she married and moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, to her father's chagrin. She was active in volunteer activities and the area Junior League, serving as the Jacksonville chapter's president from 1982 to 1983, and was elected to the Jacksonville City Council in 1985. In 1989, Fowler became the council's president. U.S. Congress In 1992, Fowler won the Republican nomination for Florida's 4th Congressional District in Jacksonville. The district had previously been the 3rd, represented by 22-term incumbent Charlie Bennett, but had been renumbered as the 4th after Florida gained four districts in the 1990 United States Census. Bennett, a Democrat, was the second-longest serving member of the House and the longest-serving member of either house of Congress in Florida history. Jacksonville had leaned Republican for some time (the city has only voted for the Democratic presidential nominee once since 1972 even though Democrats still have a substantial majority in registration), but Bennett seemed to