In 2015, she joined the Republican Party and ran as an opposition candidate for the Mtatsminda Parliamentary District in the 2016 legislative elections, though losing to Salome Zourabichvili.
Kordzaia returned to Parliament as a Republican in 2020, though she would accept her mandate only five months later after the European Union brokered an agreement between political parties that put an end to a post-electoral boycott by the opposition.
As such, she became a vocal critique of the Mikheil Saakashvili presidency, regularly taking on his administration's discretionary spending,[3] protection of corporate monopolies,[4] increased secrecy laws[5] and corruption in local governments.
[10] In 2009, Kordzaia fielded a lawsuit on behalf of GYLA requiring the government to declassify its Enguri HPP management agreement with Russian company Inter RAO, though the Tbilisi Municipal Court dismissed the case.
[11] That same year, she was one of seven candidates to be nominated by the Media Club, a journalistic union, for the Board of Trustees of the Georgian Public Broadcasting, though the Saakashvili administration rejected her candidacy.
As its executive director, she drafted a package if legislative amendments to the Broadcasting Act that would eventually be adopted by the Georgian Dream government once it took power in October 2012.
[16] Tamar Kordzaia was nominated by Georgian Dream to run in the 2013 special parliamentary election in the Nadzaladevi District in Tbilisi to replace Tea Tsulukiani after her appointment as Minister of Justice.
In his nominating speech, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili called her a "sophisticated and correct choice", a response to criticism that his new government lacked professional credentials.
[17] She ran against Conservative Kakha Kukava and UNM's Papuna Davitaia (former State Minister for Diaspora Affairs), while independent Zurab Kadagidze dropped out to endorse her,[18] and came out first with 39.5% of the vote.
[20] Kordzaia was rated by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) as "the third most active member of the 8th Parliament", sponsoring 22 bills,[21] including the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2014 which passed despite major opposition from the Georgian Orthodox Church[22] and after the passage of which she regularly used her parliamentary powers to monitor its implementation.
She opposed the 2014 Domestic Surveillance Act,[24] voted in favor of an Investigative Committee to study the privatization of the Sakrdisi Gold Mine,[25] and rejected criticism of President Giorgi Margvelashvili's refusal to abandon the Avlabari Presidential Palace.
[29] On 13 May 2015, she left Georgian Dream to join the Republican Party,[30] a move that was expected by political observers as her civil libertarian views often affiliated her with the latter.
[35] After her term, she revealed that she was routinely refused access to classified documents despite her status as a member of Parliament, including files related to the government's energy deals with Gazprom.
[53] When the latter was released from prison, she signed the 19 April 2021, Agreement between Georgian Dream and the opposition brokered by the European Union, breaking rank with UNM.
[55] She remained affiliated with the United National Movement, heading its anti-electoral fraud legal team during the 2021 local elections,[56][57][58] although she has refused to caucus with any party in Parliament.
[71] Part of her conflict with the Church was linked with her support for decentralization, a reform opposed by the Georgian Patriarchate over the latter's fear of losing influence in minority-majority municipalities.
[73] Kordzaia is the author of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2014, which banned discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or social class.
[79] She has regularly the "patriarchal system" for discrimination against women,[80] including elected officials,[81] and was one of four opposition MPs to announce her solidarity with Culture Minister Tea Tsulukiani when the latter accused an unknown sports federation chairman of abusing her.
[86] When leaked phone recordings revealed a secret meeting of Russian businessmen with Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili in 2022, she criticized his administration for having adopted an "anti-Ukrainian stance".