Zell Miller

Zell Bryan Miller (February 24, 1932 – March 23, 2018) was an American politician who served as the 79th governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999 and as a United States senator representing Georgia from 2000 to 2005. He was a member of the Democratic Party. Miller served as lieutenant governor of Georgia from 1975 to 1991. After being more liberal as governor in the 1990s, he was a conservative Democrat as a senator in the 2000s. In 2004, he supported Republican president George W. Bush against Democratic nominee John Kerry in the presidential election. Miller was a keynote speaker at both major American political parties' national conventions–Democratic in 1992 and Republican in 2004. He did not seek re-election to the Senate in 2004. After retiring from the Senate, he joined the law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge as a non-lawyer professional in the firm's national government affairs practice. Miller was also a Fox News contributor. After he left his office in 2005, no Georgia Democrats were elected to the United States Senate for 16 years until Raphael Warnock won Miller's former seat in the 2020–2021 special runoff election and Jon Ossoff won the Class 2 seat in the 2020–2021 regular runoff election. Early life and military career Miller was born in the small mountain town of Young Harris, Georgia. His father, Stephen Grady Miller (1891–1932), was a teacher who died of cerebral meningitis when Miller was a 17-day-old infant, and the future politician was raised by his widowed mother, Birdie Bryan (1893–1980). He had a sister, Jane, who was six years older than he. As a child, Miller lived both in Young Harris and Atlanta. Miller received an associate degree from Young Harris College in his home town and later attended Emory University.