Nancy Smith Schaefer (28 June 1936 – 26 March 2010) was an American politician and conservative activist, who served in the Georgia State Senate from 2004 to 2008.
Born in Clayton, Georgia and of German descent, Schaefer went to the University of Georgia and the Atlanta College of Art. She then received her bachelor's degree from Wesleyan College.
Schaefer became a prominent conservative political activist in Georgia in the 1980s. She subsequently ran for Mayor of Atlanta in 1993, before running as the Republican Party's nominee for Lieutenant governor of Georgia in 1994, where she lost to incumbent Democrat Pierre Howard. She unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Governor in 1998, finishing in third place behind Guy Millner and Mike Bowers with 7.7% of the vote in the party's primary election. She was elected to the State Senate in 2004 for the northern-state 50th district,[6] where she served until she was defeated by Jim Butterworth in a Republican primary in 2008. She had also sought to wrest the Republican nomination for Georgia's 10th congressional district from Paul Broun in 2008, but withdrew her candidacy before the primary election.
Throughout her career as an activist and politician, she was a champion of Christian conservative causes, opposing the department of Child Protective Services (a.k.a. Department of children and Families). Which, after 4 years of investigation, on November 16, 2007 she published a report entitled "The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services". After publishing the report, in a press conference she exclaimed that the report caused her to lose her position as a Georgia State Senator. In addition, she stood firmly in her support of the Pro-Life agenda, and also opposed Gay marriage. However, in expressing her Christian beliefs she promoted the display of the Ten Commandments in public places. She was a senior official in the Baptist church, having served as a First Vice President of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
Schaefer died at her home near Turnerville, Georgia in Habersham County on 26 March 2010 along with her husband of 52 years, Bruce Schaefer. Police concluded the deaths to have been a murder–suicide perpetrated by her husband. Before her death, she published and promoted the report "The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services", leading to conspiracy theories surrounding her murder. Upon her death, fellow State Senator Ralph Hudgens eulogized her as "almost like a rock star of the Christian right".
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