Zell Miller, American sergeant and politician, 79th Governor of Georgia
Zell Bryan Miller (February 24, 1932 – March 23, 2018) was an American author and politician from the state of Georgia. A Democrat, Miller served as lieutenant governor from 1975 to 1991, 79th Governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, and as U.S. Senator from 2000 to 2005.
Miller was a conservative Democrat as a senator in the 2000s, after being more liberal as governor in the 1990s. 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 2020–21 special runoff election and Jon Ossoff won the Class 2 seat in the 2020–21 regular runoff election.