John J. Miller, was born July 28, 1932 in Savannah, Georgia. A Democrat representing Berkeley, John Miller graduated from Howard University School of Law. He was elected to serve as Assembly Minority Leader by his fellow Democratic Assembly colleagues in 1970. Prior to his election to the Assembly, he served as President of the Berkeley Board of Education and a member of the Berkeley Housing Advisory and Appeals Board. He succeeded Assembly member Byron Rumford in office, and fought to preserve Rumford’s California Fair Housing Act of 1963. A successful attorney, he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to California’s First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco in 1978. He remained on the Court until his death on February 16, 1985. He was 52 years old.