House District 82 Representative Mary Margaret Oliver is a DeKalb County native and practicing attorney in Decatur who has served her district for more than three decades and is the only person in state history to have served as chair of both the House and Senate judiciary committees.

House District 82 encompasses parts of Decatur, Brookhaven, and Chamblee inside Interstate 85, all of the Emory University campus, and the unincorporated neighborhoods of Druid Hills, Leafmore, Clairmont Heights, Medlock, North Briarcliff, and Oak Grove.

For more than three decades, Mary Margaret Oliver has served multiple terms in the Georgia House and Senate, focusing on legislation protecting children and consumers, the rights of women, marriage equality, voting rights and equal access to justice. More recently, she has been a leader in efforts to pass badly needed reforms to Georgia’s mental health system via the bipartisan Mental Health Parity Act which unanimously passed both chambers. Companion follow-up legislation introduced in 2023 stalled in the Senate, but will be a priority during the 2024 session.

Rep. Oliver sits on the Appropriations, Judiciary, Governmental Affairs, Juvenile Justice, and Science and Technology and Infrastructure Innovation  Committees. By appointment of the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, she serves on the Committee on Justice for Children, and by appointment of the Governor, she joined the Commission on Behavioral Health Innovation and Reform.

 Earlier, the late House Speaker David Ralston appointed her to special committees on Criminal Justice Reform, Child Welfare Reform, and Access to the Civil Justice System. In 2021-22, she served as chair of the Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Oversight Committee (MARTOC), making her the sole Democrat committee chair in the House during that time period.

A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Emory University Law School, Rep. Oliver has remained active in the life of Emory, where she has taught in the Barton Child Law and Policy Center, currently serves on the Board of Visitors, and was honored as one of Emory’s History Makers. Her legislative work has also garnered recognition by the Atlanta YWCA, Garden Clubs of Georgia, and Voices for Georgia’s Children, among other organizations.

Representative Oliver was a frequent guest on GPB’s Political Rewind and has long been a contributor of opinion pieces on legislative issues to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A golfer and avid gardener with a love of Georgia’s natural beauty, Oliver serves on the board of the Altamaha Riverkeeper. She is a lifelong member of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Midtown Atlanta, where she teaches an annual Sunday School class, “Jesus on the Front Page of the New York Times.”

Rep. Oliver was recognized as Georgia’s Woman of the Year in 2017. Read the speech delivered for the occasion by WIN List Executive Director Melita Easters to honor Rep, Oliver in a blog post here.