Senator Mack Francis Mattingly

Mack Francis Mattingly (born January 7, 1931) is an American diplomat and politician from Georgia who served as a United States Senator from Georgia for one term from 1981 to 1987. A member of the Republican Party, he was the first Republican to have served in the U.S. Senate from Georgia since the Reconstruction era, and the first Republican ever to have been elected to the United States Senate from Georgia by popular vote. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, and as a member of the Senate he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his constituents.

Mattingly was born in Anderson, Indiana, on January 7, 1931. He served four years in the United States Air Force from 1951 to 1955 and was stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. After his military service, he returned to Indiana and in 1957 earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from Indiana University Bloomington. That same year he married Carolyn Longcamp; the couple would have two daughters, Jane and Anne. Following his graduation, Mattingly moved to Georgia, where he worked for twenty years for IBM, establishing himself in the business community. He later operated his own company, M’s Inc., which sold office supplies and equipment in Brunswick, Georgia.

Mattingly’s political involvement began in the mid-1960s as the modern Republican Party was emerging in the South. In 1964 he served as chairman of U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign in Georgia’s 8th congressional district, a campaign in which Goldwater carried the state. Two years later, Mattingly helped Howard “Bo” Callaway organize the Georgia Republican Party and joined Callaway’s ticket as the Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives against Democratic Congressman W. S. Stuckey Jr. Although Mattingly lost that race, he quickly became a key figure in the state party. He was elected to the Georgia Republican Party State Executive Committee and served as vice chairman from 1968 until 1975. From 1975 to 1977 he served as chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, a period during which he worked to build Republican infrastructure and visibility in a traditionally Democratic state and began exploring a race for the U.S. Senate.

In the 1980 election, Mattingly achieved a historic upset by defeating longtime Democratic Senator Herman Talmadge. Running in a year when Georgia’s native son Jimmy Carter carried the state over Ronald Reagan in the presidential race, Mattingly nonetheless outpolled Reagan and secured a narrow but consequential victory. He took office on January 3, 1981, and served until January 3, 1987. During his term, he sat on several key committees, including the Senate Committee on Appropriations, where he chaired first the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch and later the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies. He also served at various times on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; the Joint Economic Committee; and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. Mattingly became particularly known as a strong advocate of a presidential line-item veto, a position that drew national attention and earned him public recognition from President Ronald Reagan during the 1985 State of the Union address.

Mattingly’s Senate tenure also included involvement in high-profile budget and appropriations controversies. In 1981 he submitted a budget proposal that would have required Playboy magazine to remove several sections if it wished to continue receiving federal funding for its Braille edition. Although his motion failed, the issue resurfaced in 1986 when an amendment sponsored by Representative Chalmers Wylie successfully defunded Playboy’s Braille edition. Later that year, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ruled that Congress’s action violated the First Amendment, and production of the Playboy Braille edition resumed in January 1987. In the 1986 election, Mattingly sought a second term but was narrowly defeated by Democratic Congressman Wyche Fowler of Atlanta, ending his Senate service after one term.

Following his departure from the Senate, Mattingly continued his public service in diplomatic and defense-related roles. In 1987 President Ronald Reagan appointed him assistant secretary-general for defense support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium, where he served in a senior capacity coordinating support functions within the alliance. In recognition of his work, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1988. Under President George H. W. Bush, Mattingly was appointed United States ambassador to the Republic of Seychelles in 1992, a post he held until 1993. In addition to his diplomatic assignments, he remained active on several corporate and nonprofit boards, drawing on his business and legislative experience.

Mattingly continued to play a role in Georgia and national Republican politics after leaving diplomatic service. In 2000 he ran in the special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Senator Paul Coverdell, challenging Democrat Zell Miller, who had been appointed to the seat by Governor Roy Barnes. Miller won the election and retained the seat. In subsequent years Mattingly remained an influential Republican elder statesman, endorsing Fred Thompson for president in the 2008 Republican primary and John McCain in the general election, supporting Newt Gingrich in the 2012 Republican primary and Mitt Romney in the general election, and initially backing Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican primary before shifting his support to Donald Trump after Bush withdrew. He supported Trump again in 2020, but he did not vote for Trump in 2024.

In his personal life, Mattingly experienced both long marriage and loss. His first wife, Carolyn Longcamp Mattingly, with whom he had two daughters, died in 1997. In 1998 he married Leslie Davisson, a lawyer, mediator, and former judge. Mattingly has made his home for many years on St. Simons Island, Georgia. In retirement he has remained active in Republican politics and has continued to serve on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards, maintaining a presence in public affairs well beyond his years in elective office.