ChairmanGeorgeMiller

Martinez, CA

Among Miller's top priorities in Congress are ensuring that America’s economy remains strong and internationally competitive and that Americans have access to good jobs and responsible retirement and health benefits. Miller’s bill to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, H.R. 2, was one of the first bills passed by the new Democratically-led Congress in January 2007.

Miller has been a vocal critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq and voted against going to war there in 2002. He believes America would be safer by redeploying American forces out of Iraq, either back to the United States or to other parts of the world to confront real security threats.

George Miller has a long record of important legislative achievements. Below are just a few highlights of his legislative career.

Miller was one of the four original congressional authors of the No Child Left Behind Act, the historic education reform bill signed into law on January 8, 2002. Five years later, Miller is now at the helm of the committee charged with rewriting and improving the law. Some of the law’s most important features came from Miller's legislative efforts from the mid to late 1990s, such as requiring improved teacher quality, holding schools accountable for the education of all children, and the need to provide substantial federal financial resources to schools to meet the law’s goals. Over the last five years, Miller led the fight in Congress to overturn education funding cuts by the Republican Congressional leaders and President Bush. Among Miller's top education priorities is to continue to improve teacher quality in public schools and improve funding for No Child Left Behind.

In 1992, Miller successfully passed and enacted into law, the historic California water reform law, known as the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. Miller has been an advocate for responsible water policies in California and the West since coming to Congress. Miller also co-authored with Senator Dianne Feinstein the 1994 California Desert Protection Act.

Miller has also authored laws concerning forest management and timber reform, energy policy, foster care and adoption reforms, child care, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program, aid to victims of family violence, children's mental health care, and numerous education reforms.

Miller was the founding chairman of the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families from 1983 through 1991, where he initiated congressional efforts to stop President Reagan's budget cuts to services for poor children and their families. Miller used this post to promote the concept of “investing” in social services to save lives and taxpayer dollars. Miller is a strong advocate of investigations and oversight to hold corporations and government accountable. He led congressional investigations into U.S. policy in Central America in the 1980s and 1990s, the 1989 Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill, the Alyeska Pipeline Company, criminal activities of the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, and the illegal use of sweatshops, child labor, and abuse of farm workers.

Miller aggressively pursued Jack Abramoff, the now convicted lobbyist, and his dealings with then Majority Leader Tom Delay and other congressional Republicans who protected one of Abramoff’s chief clients -- the foreign-owned garment industry in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands where poor Asian immigrants were subjected to workplace abuses and forced abortions.

Miller has long championed the Port Chicago “Mutineers”, 50 black sailors from WWII who refused to resume loading munitions at the Port Chicago Naval Weapons Station in Concord, CA, following a still unexplained explosion that killed 320 sailors in 1944, most of whom were black. Miller and other advocates showed that racism influenced the decision to court martial the sailors and in 1999 he helped win a presidential pardon for one of the few surviving mutineers.

Congressman George Miller is a leading advocate in Congress on education, labor, the economy, and the environment. He has represented the 7th District of California in the East Bay of San Francisco since 1975. His district includes portions of Contra Costa and Solano counties, including Richmond, Concord, Martinez, Pittsburg, Vallejo, Benicia and Vacaville. He is a life-long Democrat and Californian.

Miller serves in a number of important positions in Congress.

He is part of the Democratic Leadership, having been appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee, a position he has held at her request since 2003. In that role, he is responsible for helping Democrats to develop and articulate a wide range of policies of benefit to all Americans.

Miller was elected by his colleagues in January to serve as Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, a panel he has served on since first coming to Congress and on which he served as the Senior Democrat since 2001.