Democratic Senator Taxes Party Patience, Backs Bush

As President Bush searched for Democratic friends in Congress, the spotlight focused mostly on veteran, well-connected leaders such as Sen. John B. Breaux of Louisiana.

But Bush suddenly has found a steady ally on the Senate’s back benches: Zell Miller (D-Ga.), in office less than a year, has emerged as the president’s most outspoken Democratic ally on several contentious issues.

Miller last week became the first Senate Democrat to announce his support for Bush’s controversial nominee for attorney general, John Ashcroft. Earlier, Miller had nice things to say about Bush’s education initiative, which includes a controversial school-voucher proposal.

Monday, he took a giant step away from the Democratic Party line and signed on as co-sponsor of legislation to enact Bush’s $1.6-trillion tax cut. Miller went so far as to appear at a news conference with Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) to promote it.

Democratic leaders are not pleased. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) summoned Miller to his office later for a private chat after he was blindsided by Miller’s move on the tax cut--a meeting the Georgia senator jokingly referred to as a trip to “the woodshed.”

A Democratic strategist said Daschle would make clear that he would appreciate advance warning and a chance to “make [the Democratic] case” before Miller wanders from the party line again.

Miller is an exemplar of the kind of Democrat who offers Bush his best opportunity for bipartisanship: He’s a conservative Southerner with an independent streak.

But that also points to the challenge the president faces in building a bipartisan coalition in Congress: There are not nearly as many conservative Southern Democrats within its ranks as once was the case. The majority of Southern senators now are Republicans; Democrats from the region have won Senate seats by combining a respectable share of moderate-to-liberal white voters with huge support from blacks.

Miller “is the contrast to most of the other Democrats who were elected to the Senate in the 1990s” from the South, said Earl Black, a political scientist at Rice University.

Still, the concern among Senate Democratic leaders is that Miller’s flirtation with Bush may put pressure on Democrats who, like him, represent Southern or Western states that Bush carried in 2000. For these Democrats, the tax-cut issue already held allure.

“For some time, there’s been a difference of opinion among Democrats on taxes,” said a senior Democratic strategist. “It won’t be just Miller on board with Bush on the tax cut.”

Although Miller caught his fellow Democrats off guard with the timing of his pronouncements backing Bush’s initiatives, his position is hardly out of character. A strong supporter of Bill Clinton--he was a keynote speaker at the 1992 Democratic National Convention that nominated him for president--Miller nevertheless charted his own course as Georgia’s governor from 1991-99.

“Everyone was surprised, but when you go back and piece it all together, his independence is a known quantity,” said a Senate Democratic leadership aide. “He can be a maverick.”

Miller, 68, has been in the Senate since last July, when he filled the seat vacated by the death of Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.). Miller easily won election in November to the remaining four years of Coverdell’s term.

Reared in the town of Young Harris in north Georgia, he joined the Marines after high school. (In the late 1990s, he wrote a book titled “Corps Values: Everything You Need to Know, I Learned in the Marines”).

He served as mayor of his hometown, was elected to the Georgia Senate in 1960 at age 28, then went on to become a state party official and to serve 16 years as lieutenant governor.

In the 1990 gubernatorial primary, he defeated Andrew Young, the former United Nations ambassador and Atlanta mayor. As governor, he cut state spending, won legislative approval of a major reduction in state taxes and sponsored several tough-on-crime initiatives. He also implemented a college scholarship program that was later replicated on the federal level.

His record--especially on the education front--built natural bridges to Bush while the new president served as governor of Texas. Miller was one of a handful of Democrats invited to join Bush and several Republican lawmakers in a December meeting in Austin, Texas, to discuss education policy.

“I think he’s got a very good package,” Miller was quoted as saying after that meeting. “If he continues to operate like this, he’s going to be very formidable.”

While at that meeting, Miller told Bush that he supported his tax-cut plan. The Bush team passed this word along to Gramm, who coincidentally had been spending a lot of time with Miller. They traveled together on a recent congressional delegation to Mexico City and have been working on a proposal to commemorate Coverdell.

Less than a week ago, Miller became the first Democrat to support Ashcroft, whose tenure as Missouri’s governor overlapped Miller’s first two years as governor. “I know him to be a truthful man,” Miller said in announcing his support of Ashcroft, who also served as a U.S. senator. “I believe him when he says he will live by the oath he takes to uphold and enforce the laws of this land, even those he disagrees with.”