California: Seventh District

Rep. George Miller (D)

George Miller (D) Elected 1974, 17th term up
Born:	05-17-1945, Richmond
Home:	Martinez
Education:	San Francisco St. U., B.A. 1968, U. of CA at Davis, J.D. 1972
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Cynthia)
Professional Career:	Legis. aide, CA Senate Majority Ldr., 1969–74; Practicing atty., 1972–74.
DC Office	2205 RHOB, 20515 202-225-2095 Fax: 202-225-5609 Website: www.house.gov/georgemiller
State Offices	Concord:925-602-1880; Richmond:510-262-6500; Vallejo:707-645-1888;
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The journey inward from the Pacific Ocean to the vast flatness of California’s Central Valley passes through a wondrous variety of terrain. The traveler starts at the Golden Gate, with the lush green Presidio on one side and the bluff of the Marin mountains on the other; through the waters of San Francisco Bay, looked down upon by ridges above the East Bay on one side and the cone of Mount Tamalpais on the other; through the narrow Carquinez Strait to Suisun Bay, with its sloughs and marshes and ships ready for scrap, fed by the sluggish waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta; and finally past the mountains and waters, to the flat, fertile expanse of California’s great interior. This is not a journey most tourists make, but it was a familiar route to the first Americans in California and it passes by much of the industrial base of the Bay Area. On the east side of the bay is Richmond, developed almost instantaneously during World War II when Henry J. Kaiser built a shipyard in its deep-water port and 91,000 people from all over the country were put to work building ships for the Pacific theater; what became known as Rosie the Riveter Memorial Park is now a national park, and the city now has a 36% black population and is attracting high-tech spinoffs, despite a downtown that has seen better days. Across Carquinez Strait is Vallejo, named for a Mexican general and member of the first California Senate, the site from 1853 to 1996 of the giant Mare Island Naval Shipyard, where 41,000 worked during World War II. Farther up the bay, on the south, is Concord, the largest city in Contra Costa County, whose city officials were unique in that they lobbied the Pentagon to close the mostly unused Concord Naval Weapons Station; they wanted to use the land for business and residential development, which is banned beyond the urban limit that county voters imposed in 1990. The Defense Department complied and included about half of the site on the 2005 base closure list, with plans now underway for mixed-use development; the Army retains the remaining parcel for ammunition and cargo shipping. These shores are the industrial part of the Bay area, with tank farms and refineries. The towns are among the most ethnically diverse in the country, with large percentages of blacks, Hispanics and Asians and large numbers of Filipinos in Vallejo and other towns.

The 7th Congressional District of California includes most of this passage, from Richmond to Vallejo (the 7th’s largest city), Hercules, Martinez and Pittsburg. It also proceeds inland through the intermountain interstices of Contra Costa County to include part of Concord and northeast from Vallejo over the sloughs and up I-80 to include Vacaville, on flat land beneath Vaca Mountain. Politically, this industrial area was blue-collar, labor union Democratic back in the days when San Francisco, with its larger white-collar population, often voted Republican. Today housing values have risen, as they have just about everywhere in the Bay Area, but it remains heavily Democratic, liberal on most issues. But not as leftish as other San Francisco Democrats: John Kerry’s 67%-32% win over George W. Bush in 2004 was closer than in six other Bay Area districts.

The congressman from the 7th District is George Miller, one of three remaining Democrats of the Watergate class of 1974 (the others are James Oberstar and Henry Waxman), the first baby-boom liberal to chair a House committee and now chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. He is heir to a tradition of Bay Area working class politics. His father was chairman of the state Senate Finance Committee; when he died in 1969, Miller lost the race to succeed him, but became a staffer for Senate Leader (and later San Francisco Mayor) George Moscone. Miller was a protege of San Francisco Congressman Phillip Burton, who did so much to establish liberal hegemony in the House in the 1970s. His work is marked by one of the most liberal voting records in the House, and he brings an aggressiveness and zest for political combat reminiscent of Burton. Miller is a strong backer of protecting the environment against what he sees as greedy private sector operators and of furthering the causes of labor unions. Like Burton, Miller has grasped for top party leadership posts but hasn’t made it. But he has learned a legislator’s virtues of patience, timing and creativity. Now, his close alliance with Burton’s successor—Speaker Nancy Pelosi—places him in a position of great influence.

Miller began the 1990s in a position of power, able to advance his causes forward. In 1991 he became chairman of the Interior Committee (he renamed it Natural Resources in 1993, Republicans renamed it Resources in 1995, and Democrats have returned it to Natural Resources) and proceeded, in his words, “to kick ass and take names.” He had long crusaded against water reclamation projects that provided cheap water to farmers. In 1992, amid a California drought, he passed a Central Valley Project law that raised farmers’ prices closer to those of urban users and imposed environmental restrictions, over the fierce opposition of Central Valley politicians and Governor Pete Wilson. He passed the California desert bill, with Senator Dianne Feinstein, in October 1994; it was the last major legislation of the Democratic Congress.

For several years in the minority he worked more to prevent change than to make change. He helped to stymie John Doolittle’s attempt to revise the Central Valley Project. He harshly criticized Republicans for trying to change the Endangered Species Act, EPA regulations, the bans on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil drilling and Tongass National Forest logging and for commercial sponsorship of national parks; for the most part, he was successful, with help from the Clinton administration.

The election of George W. Bush unexpectedly returned Miller to the center ring. He replaced the retired Bill Clay as ranking Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee. The incoming chairman, John Boehner, recommended that Bush include Miller and other Democrats in a pre-inauguration meeting in Austin. They struck up a cordial relationship; Bush started calling Miller “Big George.” Miller is a Democrat who doesn’t always follow the dictates of the teacher’s unions; he seems genuinely concerned that too many American children are getting a rotten education. He came to believe that Bush shared that concern. Miller wanted more spending on education, but he also wanted more rigorous standards, with consequences. Boehner and Miller worked on a bipartisan basis on a committee that usually had bitter partisan divisions from the 1960s through the 1990s. This effort became the No Child Left Behind Act; at the bill signing in January 2002, Bush took care to praise Miller for his contributions. Miller has not been entirely happy with the way the administration implemented the law, however. He has continually complained that the administration and Congress have not appropriated the full amounts authorized (though that is standard practice on many programs). But he has also said that there has been progress by minority and poor students—his goal in the first place.

Miller has fought the Bush administration and committee Republicans on many issues. He worked to defeat the Department of Labor overtime regulations and lost on the floor. In 2004 he proposed, as an alternative to Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas’s corporate tax bill, an American Jobs Plan that read like a Democratic wish list: rollbacks of incentives for outsourcing jobs, $40 billion of research and development spending, doubling of Pell grants, a federal broadband program, extension of unemployment benefits. He has sponsored a bill to allow unions to be recognized as bargaining representatives by securing signatures on cards and requiring arbitration of initial contracts. That was a cause going nowhere in a Republican House, but Miller made passage of this “card-check” bill an early accomplishment of the Democratic-controlled House; it passed 241–185 in March 2007, with 13 Republican votes.

On the 2001 education bill Boehner worked closely with Miller, and in 2004 and early 2005 he seemed prepared to do that again on the issue of pensions. Miller praised Boehner for raising the subject in 2004, and in September 2004 the House placed on an appropriation Miller’s amendment to require the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to disclose corporate pension funding levels to participants. In October 2004 he sponsored a bill, “as a public marker,” to freeze for five years the pensions of corporate executive who terminate employee pension plans or vastly reduce benefits. In early 2005, Boehner said he would work on pension law in terms that suggested a bipartisan approach might be possible. But when pension reform legislation was enacted in 2006, it was with considerable Democratic support but steadfast opposition from Miller.

His ascension to committee chairman in January 2007 was all the more significant because Pelosi relies heavily on his advice, judgment and protection from potential adversaries within the Democratic Caucus. “She is the leader that I’ve been waiting for for 30 years,” Miller said in a 2005 interview with National Journal. “She is the complete package. She understands policy, politics, and has a core of values that is clear and solid. She is a rare breed.” Their working relationship clearly works both ways. He has described his role as “Hamburger Helper,” adding, “I’ll do whatever she wants.” Pelosi named Miller as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, where he was instrumental in preparing the “New Direction” agenda for the 2006 campaign. He often spends time in Pelosi’s office and even gave up his long-time staff director and close adviser to become Pelosi’s chief of staff in 2005. Some have said that Miller serves as Pelosi’s enforcer, as evidenced by Miller’s strong support for John Murtha’s November 2006 campaign against Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader, which became an embarrassment for Pelosi. But the Democrats’ return to the House majority shifted some of his focus back to the Education and Labor Committee where he has ambitious plans. As chairman, his priorities included renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act, with increased funding and incentives for improved teacher quality; increased support for college student loans; and pursuit of his long-time interests in services to poor children and nutrition programs. In May 2007, he won enactment of an increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour.

In local matters, Miller worked to reduce the number of slot machines in the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians casino in San Pablo from 5,000 to 2,500, though he had passed in 2000 an amendment freeing the casino from federal and state restrictions; Senator Dianne Feinstein in January 2005 moved to rescind the 2000 measure. Later in 2005, Miller reversed his earlier view, and joined in calling for repeal of the compact because the proposed casino was too large.

Miller has been reelected by wide margins in this very Democratic district. In 2006, he won without major-party opposition. 

Committees

• Democratic Steering Committee Co-Chair.
  
• Education & Labor (Chmn. of 27 D)
  Higher Education, Lifelong Learning & Competitiveness; Health, Employment, Labor & Pensions.
• Natural Resources (15th of 27 D)
  Water & Power.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +19
• Area size: 443 square miles
• Urban Population: 98.7%
• Rural Population: 1.3%
• Population 2000: 639,088
• Population 2005 (est): 649,003
• Median Income: $52,778
• Poverty Status: 10.0%
• Military Veterans: 12.5%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 43.2% White; 16.8% Black; 13.3% Asian; 0.5% Native Am.; 0.6% Hawaiian; 3.9% Two+ races; 0.3% Other; 21.4% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 7.5% German%; 6.7% Irish%; 5.6% English%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 22.7%; White collar 60.1%; Gray collar 17.1%;