Clarence Saxby Chambliss (born November 10, 1943) is an American lawyer and retired politician who was a United States Senator from Georgia from 2003 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a U.S. Representative from 1995 to 2003. During his House tenure, Chambliss chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security. This subcommittee oversaw investigations of the intelligence community following the September 11 attacks in 2001. Chambliss was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002. As a senator, he chaired the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry during the 109th Congress (2005–2007). During the 112th Congress (2011–2012), he was the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In December 2011, the Washington Post named Chambliss as one of the Best Leaders of 2011 for his attempts to craft a bipartisan deficit reduction package. Chambliss was re-elected to the Senate in 2008, but did not seek reelection in 2014. Early life and education Chambliss was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, the son of Emma Baker (née Anderson) and Alfred Parker Chambliss, Jr., an Episcopal minister. He graduated from C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1961. He attended Louisiana Tech University from 1961–1962 and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business in 1966, working his way through college at a bakery in Athens. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1968. He is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. During the Vietnam War, Chambliss received student deferments and was also given a medical deferment (1-Y) for bad knees due to a football injury. U.S. House of Representatives Chambliss was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as one of the new conservative Republican congressmen whose elections caused the party to gain a majority in both houses of Congress. A long-time Congressman and fellow Georgian, Newt Gingrich, was the leader of the movement, and Chambliss and the other Republicans elected that year are known as the Class of '94. Chambliss was elected from the Macon-based 8th District, after six-term incumbent J. Roy Rowland retired. He was elected with 63% of the vote—an unexpectedly large margin since the 8th had never elected a Republican. He faced a tough re-election fight in 1996 against Macon attorney Jim Wiggins, but breezed to reelection in 1998