John Miller (Washington politician)

John Miller
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Washington's 1st district
In office January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Joel Pritchard
Succeeded by	Maria Cantwell
President of the Seattle City Council
In office August 14, 1978 – January 3, 1980
Preceded by	Phyllis Lamphere
Succeeded by	Paul Kraabel
2nd United States Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
In office July 30, 2004 – December 15, 2006
Preceded by	Nancy Ely-Raphel
Succeeded by	Mark P. Lagon
Personal details
Born	John Ripin Miller (1938-05-23)May 23, 1938 New York City, New York
Died	October 4, 2017(2017-10-04) (aged 79) Corte Madera, California
Citizenship	United States
Political party	Republican
Education	Bucknell University (BA) Yale University (MA, LLB)

John Ripin Miller (May 23, 1938 – October 4, 2017) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1985 to 1993. He represented the 1st congressional district of Washington as a Republican. While in Congress he was an advocate of human rights in the Soviet Union, China, and South Africa.

Biography

Miller received his LL.B. from Yale Law School and an MA in Economics from Yale Graduate School in 1964. He graduated with a BA from Bucknell University in 1959, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, and served as an Army Infantry officer on active duty in 1960 and later in the U.S. Army Reserves.

Miller did not run for re-election in 1992. Prior to being elected congressman, he was active in state and municipal governments, serving as assistant attorney general for Washington; vice president and legal counsel for the Washington Environmental Council; and Seattle City Councilman (1972–1979). Miller's first campaign for the City Council was tied to saving the Pike Place Market and while on the Council he oversaw the rehabilitation of the Market. He founded Seattle's urban P-Patch program, a gardening allotment program that was first of its kind in the nation which includes at least 90 sites as of 2016. Miller led the Council in rejecting Seattle's entry into Washington Public Power Supply System nuclear plants 4 and 5 (Satsop nuclear power plant) which later went bankrupt, and unsuccessfully sought the demolition of the Alaska Way Viaduct separating Seattle's downtown from its waterfront.

Miller served as the director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for the U.S. State Department, with the rank of Ambassador-at-Large, starting in 2002. He sought to increase public awareness of modern-day slavery and nurture a worldwide abolitionist movement with the United States in the lead. Miller resigned effective December 15, 2006, to join the faculty of George Washington University. He later taught at Yale University and was named a visiting scholar at the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Miller served as a distinguished senior fellow in international affairs and human rights with the Discovery Institute. Prior to his time at State, he had served as the chair of the institute, and was an English teacher at Northwest Yeshiva High School in Mercer Island, Washington.

On October 4, 2017, Miller died in Corte Madera, California from cancer at the age of 79.

See also

• List of Jewish members of the United States Congress

References

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on resignation from State Department (page no longer available 23 July 2008)

• United States Congress. "John Miller (id: M000736)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• State Department Biography at the Wayback Machine (archived December 30, 2006).
• Seattle City Council Members, 1869-Present Chronological Listing, Seattle City Archives. Accessed online 19 July 2008.
• Appearances on C-SPAN