Miller, John, 1938 May 23-2017

John Ripin Miller (May 23, 1938 – October 4, 2017) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he notably served as the U.S. Representative from Washington's 1st congressional district from 1985 to 1993.

Born in New York City, he attended public schools and Friends Seminary there before earning a B.A. from Bucknell University before serving as an Army Infantry officer on active duty in 1960. Following this, Miller earned M.A. and LL.B. degrees from Yale University. He was admitted to the Washington state bar in 1965 and began practice in Seattle, Washington. From 1965 to 1968, Miller served as assistant attorney general of State of Washington. In 1971, Miller was elected to the Seattle City Council, serving there from 1972 to 1979. During his time there, Miller led the Council in rejecting Seattle's entry into Washington Public Power Supply System nuclear plants 4 and 5 (Satsop nuclear power plant) and unsuccessfully sought the demolition of the Alaska Way Viaduct separating Seattle's downtown from its waterfront. He unsuccessfully ran for Washington Attorney General as an independent in 1980.

Miller was elected to the U.S. House as a Republican in 1984. While in Congress he championed human rights in the Soviet Union, China, and South Africa. After leaving Congress, he served as the chair of the Discovery Institute in Seattle and was an English teacher at Northwest Yeshiva High School in Mercer Island, Washington. Miller then served as the director of the 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.

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