The Governor of Georgia is the head of the executive branch of Georgia's government and the commander-in-chief of the U.S. state's military forces.

The current governor is Nathan Deal. Governor Deal is only the second governor of Georgia from the Republican Party since the Reconstruction era.

Georgia was one of the original Thirteen Colonies and ratified the Constitution of the United States on January 2, 1788. Before it declared its independence, Georgia was a colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Like most early states, Georgia had claims to western areas, but did not cede its claims during the formation of the country like the other states. It sold this area, the Yazoo Lands, to the federal government on April 24, 1802, when it was assigned to Mississippi Territory.

In the Rules and Regulations of 1776, considered by some to be the first constitution, the chief executive was a president chosen by the legislature every six months. This was quickly superseded by the 1777 constitution, which called for a governor to be chosen by the legislature each year, with a term limited to one year out of every three. In the event of a vacancy, the president of the executive council acted as governor. The governor's term was lengthened to two years in the 1789 constitution. The 1798 constitution modified succession so that the president of the senate would act as governor should that office become vacant. An 1818 amendment to that constitution extended the line of succession to the speaker of the house, and an 1824 amendment provided for popular election of the governor.

Albert Lincoln "Al" Roker, Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is an American television weatherman as well as an actor and book author. He is best known as being the weather anchor on NBC's Today. On Monday, July 20, 2009, he began co-hosting his new morning show, Wake Up with Al, on The Weather Channel, which airs weekdays from 6am to 7am ET, one hour earlier than Today. He holds an expired American Meteorological Society Television Seal, #238. Writing with Dick Lochte, Roker began a series of murder mysteries in 2009 that feature Billy Blessing, a celebrity chef turned amateur detective. The second book in the series, The Midnight Show Murders (2010), was nominated for a 2011 Nero Award.

Roker was born in Queens, New York, the son of Isabel, of Jamaican descent, and Albert Lincoln Roker, Sr., a labor relations negotiator, bus driver and dispatcher of Bahamian descent. Roker initially wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic (in the faith of his mother) and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He worked on several projects as a member of the school's Cartooning & Illustration Club. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he double-majored in graphic design and broadcasting/journalism. Roker is the cousin of the late actress Roxie Roker, who was most notable for her role on the sitcom The Jeffersons and the mother of popular rock musician Lenny Kravitz.

John Nathan Deal (born August 25, 1942) is a United States politician, the 82nd and current Governor of Georgia. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1992 but switched to the Republican Party in 1995. On March 1, 2010, Deal announced his resignation from Congress to run for governor of Georgia.

Deal faced a crowded field of candidates in the July Republican primary but ultimately faced former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel in a tightly contested August 10, 2010, primary runoff election, and won by fewer than 2500 votes. The following day Handel declined to pursue a recount and conceded. On November 2, Democratic opponent Roy Barnes called to concede the race for governor of Georgia, making Deal the governor-elect to succeed term-limited Sonny Perdue in 2011.

Deal was born in Millen in 1942 and grew up in Sandersville. Both of his parents were teachers. He attended Mercer University in Macon, where he earned his bachelor and law degrees with honors. After he earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1966, he went into the United States Army, where he earned the rank of captain.

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served as a U.S. Naval officer, was a peanut farmer, served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975).

During Carter's term as President, two new cabinet-level departments were created: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), 1980 Summer Olympics boycott by the United States of the Moscow Olympics and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Ray McBerry (born 25 January 1968) is a former Republican candidate for Governor of Georgia in the 2010 primary and is regarded as one of the leaders of the modern States' Rights movement in America.

McBerry is one of the leading proponents of the restoration of the Constitutional Law concept of States' Rights found in the 10th Amendment and is one of the most frequently requested lecturers on the subject.^{[citation needed]}

In March of 2010, he hosted the first-ever national Tenth Amendment Summit which was held at the Atlanta Airport Hilton in Atlanta, Georgia. Candidates running for a multitude of different offices but all on a Tenth Amendment platform arrived from all across the country to participate in the two-day Summit which drew hundreds of spectators from as far away as Washington state and Rhode Island. Leaving no doubt as to their support of the 10th Amendment, or the Constitution in general, the candidates met in a closed-door session the first day of the summit to prepare the following joint statement: