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GovernmentExecutive.com - Covering The Business Of The Federal Government
North Carolina: Thirteenth District
Rep. Brad Miller (D)
Last Updated June 22, 2005


Rep. Brad Miller (D)
Rep. Brad Miller (D)
Elected 2002, 2d term
Born: May 19, 1953, Fayetteville
Home: Raleigh
Education: U. of NC, B.A. 1975, London Schl. of Economics, M.S.C. 1978, Columbia U., J.D. 1979
Religion: Episcopalian
Marital Status: married (Esther Hall)
Elected
 Office:
NC House of Reps., 1992-94; NC Senate, 1996-2002.
Professional Career: Clerk, Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr., U.S. Fourth Circuit Ct. of Appeals, Durham, 1979-80; Practicing atty., 1980-2002.
DC Office 1722 LHOB20515, 202-225-3032; Fax: 202-225-0181; Web site: www.house.gov/bradmiller
State Offices Greensboro, 336-574-2909; Raleigh, 919-781-9101.
Additional Info
Committees · Ratings · Key Votes · Election Results
District Demographics
More On North Carolina
At A Glance · State Profile
District Map
Redistricting · Almanac Home
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Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, House Race Hotline, National Journal and Technology Daily archives using the form above:
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In the last two decades, metropolitan growth has come to some of the long humble countryside of North Carolina. A generation ago, Raleigh, Durham, Burlington and Greensboro were a string of small cities connected by I-85 across the central Piedmont, moderately prosperous, with textile, tobacco and furniture factories, but not very big: just a few miles from the center of town, farm fields started, dotted by country towns with barbecue restaurants and churches. The counties to the north were almost purely rural, with a few factory towns. Today, many of the old tobacco fields are used for growing other crops. The booming metropolitan areas of North Carolina have spread far beyond the old city limits and county lines into the adjacent counties. Wake County, which includes Raleigh, grew 70% between 1990 and 2004, and the surrounding counties also grew between 38% and 74%. Rural roads are now clogged in the morning with commuters headed for jobs in the new office parks, and income levels have risen far above what they once were.

Much of this territory now makes up the 13th Congressional District of North Carolina, a district created after the state, to the surprise of just about everybody, gained a new House seat from the 2000 Census. Almost half, 47%, of the residents in the 13th live in Wake County. It includes the center of Raleigh, a tangent going off to North Carolina State University and much of the northern part of the county, but includes relatively few of the affluent new subdivisions that are mostly in the 4th District. Another 18% of its residents live in Guilford County, where it includes black neighborhoods and the University of North Carolina's Greensboro campus. The rest of the district includes all or most of four counties up to the Virginia border--Granville, Person, Caswell, Rockingham--historically rural and Democratic, with fairly large black percentages. The district lines were drawn by the Democratic legislature to produce a new Democratic district, one of the few created in the South in recent decades which does not have a majority or near-majority of blacks; only 27% of its residents are black. But the rural counties have a historical Democratic heritage, and university neighborhoods are heavily Democratic. The district was very closely divided in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, with George W. Bush winning narrowly in 2000 and John Kerry winning by a slight margin in 2004.

The congressman from the 13th District is Brad Miller, a Democrat first elected in 2002. Born and raised in Fayetteville by his widowed mother, a school bookkeeper, Miller graduated from the University of North Carolina and got a master's degree at the London School of Economics and a law degree from Columbia. After clerking for a federal appeals court judge, he began practicing law in Raleigh. In 1992, he was elected to the state House, where he authored a safe gun storage law. But he was swept away after one term in the 1994 Republican landslide. He was elected in 1996 to the state Senate where, like many members of the House, he had a hand in drawing his own district as chairman of the Senate's redistricting committee.

Miller drew a district very much in his political interest, but he couldn't be sure that he could run in the seat he had drawn for himself. Utah brought a lawsuit against the Census Bureau, arguing that because the census counted servicemen with legal residence in a state but serving overseas as part of the state's apportionment population, it should also count Mormon missionaries domiciled in a state but serving overseas. North Carolina has a lot of servicemen, but Utah has many Mormon missionaries, and such a count would have increased Utah's population enough that it, rather than North Carolina, would have gotten the 435th district under the formula dictated by a 1928 law. Utah lost in federal court and appealed; in June 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed and North Carolina kept its 13th District. With the Court's ruling, four experienced Democrats launched an 11-week sprint to the September primary, which seemed likely to determine the winner in November. Miller raised the most money and got early endorsements from labor unions, teachers' unions and the League of Conservation Voters; he also had a geographic advantage because he is from Wake County. In the primary, Miller led with 40% (enough to avoid a runoff in North Carolina) to 24% for former Congressman Robin Britt. Britt won the four western counties, where his name was familiar. But Wake County cast 49% of the vote, and Miller won 58% of the vote there to only 10% for Britt.

In the general, Miller faced Carolyn Grant, a commercial real-estate broker and former head of the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. Grant, who ran unsuccessfully for Raleigh mayor as a Democrat in 1999 and then switched parties, called Miller a tax-and-spend Democrat, referring to his support for $1 billion in new taxes in the recent legislative session, but also criticizing him for voting to cut prescription drug assistance for the elderly. Miller said that North Carolina had the second-best record of any state in cutting taxes during the prior six years and that he supported elimination of the sales tax on food. When he pointed out that Grant had contributed to his campaign in 1998, she responded that she did not know "how liberal" he was. Grant got little help from national Republicans and Miller won 55%-42%.

In the House, after David Price, Miller had the most liberal record of the state's white Democrats. He focused on job training and efforts to create new manufacturing jobs. He filed a bill to prohibit anti-predatory lending practices, which he modeled on a similar North Carolina law. He was challenged for reelection by a Republican House staffer who criticized his votes against the partial-birth abortion ban and the medical malpractice bill. Miller said she had lived in Washington for the past eight years and criticized her support for the war in Iraq. Miller increased his majority to 59%-41%, and appeared to entrench himself, at least until the next redistricting.

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Committees

  • Financial Services (25th of 32 D): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Housing & Community Opportunity.
  • Science (9th of 20 D): Environment, Technology & Standards; Space & Aeronautics.

Group Ratings (More Info)
ADA ACLU AFS LCV ITIC NTU COC ACU NTLC CHC
2004 90 70 88 100 70 14 43 8 3 15 --
2003 95 -- 100 95 -- 22 34 8 -- -- --

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
2003 LIB -- 2003 CONS            2004 LIB -- 2004 CONS
Economic 81% -- 18%            66% -- 34%
Social 73% -- 26%            68% -- 31%
Foreign 68% -- 31%            59% -- 40%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)

1. Drilling in ANWR N
2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N
3. Medicare/Rx Bill N
4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y
5. DC School Vouchers N
6. Ban Human Cloning N

      

 7. Restrict Gun Liability N
 8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N
 9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N
10. Fund Iraq War Y
11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N
12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
Candidate Total Votes Percent Expenditures
2004 general Brad Miller (D) 160,896 59% $1,181,327
Virginia Johnson (R) 112,788 41% $350,395
2004 primary Brad Miller (D) unopposed
2002 general Brad Miller (D) 100,287 55% $989,529
Carolyn Grant (R) 77,688 42% $416,344
Other 5,295 3%

2004 Presidential Vote
Kerry (D) 147,144 (52%)
Bush (R) 132,581 (47%)

2000 Presidential Vote
Bush (R) 113,600 (50%)
Gore (D) 112,953 (49%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Thirteenth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

District Demographics (More Info)
  • Cook Partisan Voting Index: D + 2
  • District Size: 2,294 square miles
  • Population in 2000: 619,178; 73.7% urban; 26.3% rural
  • Median Household Income: $41,060; 11.6% are below the poverty line
  • Occupation: 25.7% blue collar; 60.5% white collar; 13.8% gray collar; 11.3% military veterans
  • Race/Ethnic Origin: 63.3% White, 26.9% Black, 2.0% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.2% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 6.0% Hispanic origin
  • Ancestry: 10.0% USA, 8.7% English, 6.8% German
  • Click here for statewide demographic data.

Teusday, September 6, 2005 [an error occurred while processing this directive]


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