ATHENS, Ga. — Dr. Paul Broun announced he will run in 2022 to succeed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District seat.

The multi-county district includes eastern Newton County. 

Hice announced earlier this month he planned to challenge incumbent Brad Raffensperger for the Republican nomination for Secretary of State in 2022.

Broun, a resident of Athens, previously represented the district from 2007 to 2015.    

“When I left Washington in 2015, it was bad. It is much worse today,” Broun said. “Spending has been spiraling out of control, and Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats. There’s only a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.

“Spending on such an unprecedented scale will cause hyperinflation and eventually the financial collapse of America,” he said.

Broun said voters can know what he will do because he never voted for a tax hike, omnibus bill, or debt ceiling increase and introduced the most targeted spending cuts during his previous time in Congress.

“The Biden-Harris Administration wants an endless emergency to justify more lockdowns, open borders, nationalized elections with no voter identification, unconstitutional gun controls, critical race theory in our schools, and massive tax hikes,” Broun said.

“With one-party rule in Washington, we need a proven fighter for liberty and freedom to restore constitutional restraints on the federal government.

“I’m a Marine veteran and family physician who understands basic economics, that something cannot come from nothing. That’s Washington’s worst nightmare.”

If elected, Broun will enter Congress with seven and a half years of seniority, which gives him priority to become the highest-ranking Republican on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. 

Broun chaired that subcommittee when Republicans still held the majority and has pledged to investigate the origins of COVID-19 and the public health response to it if he regains that gavel. 

“This is not so much about what I will do as much as what I will prevent from happening,” Broun said. “I will expose and block the liberal agenda with every fiber of my being. I did it before, and I will do it again. 

“Everything we stand for northeast Georgia is at stake.”

Broun won a special election in July 2007 to succeed Charlie Norwood after Norwood’s death while in office that year. 

He won a full term in 2008 and served until 2015 when Hice succeeded him in the 10th Congressional District seat.