Buckhead Resident Announces Senate Campaign

Republican attorney Beth Beskin, a Buckhead resident, Wednesday announced her candidacy for State Senate District 6.

Beskin, who said she qualified for the race on Aug. 26, will run in the Republican primary for the chance to oppose incumbent Democratic Sen. Doug Stoner in the general election in November 2012. Under new political district maps, the district stretches from Vinings through Sandy Springs into Buckhead.

is also running as a Republican. Beskin said she expects a few more Republican candidates to enter the race, which political observers say could be the most expensive state race in state history.

A Louisiana native, Beskin ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Democratic Sen. Horacena Tate of the 38th district in 2010.

Beskin, a partner in the Vinings-area law firm Cohen Cooper Estep & Allen, was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal as one of his liaisons to the Atlanta Public Schools to monitor school board progress on retaining school accreditation. According to her campaign web site, she practices family law and employee benefits litigation.

She graduated in 1989 from the LSU Law School, where she was a member of the Louisiana Law Review and the Order of the Coif, according to her web site. She received a bachelor of science degree in geology from Tulane in 1981 and her MS in geology from the University of New Orleans in 1983. From 1981 to 1984, she worked as a petroleum engineer for Shell Oil Co. in New Orleans.

Her husband, Dr. Jim Beskin, is an orthopedic surgeon with Peachtree Orthopedic Clinic. Residents of Buckhead since 1992, they are the parents of two daughters. She is a member of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta and is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Alanta.