U.S Congress

On April 5, 1977, Fowler was elected in a special election to the U.S. House of Representatives, to fill the vacancy caused by Andrew Young's resignation upon appointment as US Ambassador to the United Nations. He defeated John Lewis in the election.^[1]

In 1986, as a U.S. Representative, Fowler narrowly defeated the incumbent Republican Senator Mack Mattingly. Fowler served as the junior senator from Georgia. Fowler's voting record was liberal on social concerns and moderate on economic and national security issues.^{[citation needed]}

On October 15, 1991, Fowler was one of eleven Democrats who voted to confirm the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in a 52 to 48 vote,^[2] the narrowest margin of approval in more than a century.^[3]

He unexpectedly lost his re-election bid in 1992 to Georgia state Senator Paul Coverdell (who would later become leader of the state's Republican party). Fowler won a small plurality of the vote against Coverdell on general election night 1992, but Georgia law requires a runoff election between the two candidates with the highest vote totals if no one candidate receives over 50 percent (a majority) of the total vote, and a Libertarian Party candidate received enough votes to keep Fowler's total below 50 percent-plus-one. In the runoff on November 24, 1992, Coverdell upset Fowler by a narrow margin.^[4]

The New York Times noted that "he was the key figure in orchestrating a compromise on financing for the National Endowment for the Arts."^[5]

Post-Congress

After his re-election defeat, Fowler was selected to serve as the 22nd United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the Clinton Administration. Fowler left after George W. Bush took office, and was succeeded by attorney Robert W. Jordan.^[6]

After leaving the position, Fowler joined the law firm of Powell, Goldstein, Frazer, and Murphy, and he joined several corporate and academic boards, including those of the Carter Center at Emory University and the Morehouse School of Medicine. He also became board chairman of the Middle East Institute and is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.^[7]