Despite his death on Friday, Zell Miller’s impact on Georgia will live on through the project he championed on his way to two terms as governor, the HOPE Scholarship.
Miller, a former lieutenant governor, U.S. senator and governor, died on Friday at age 86 after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease.
Almost 2 million people have been able to attend colleges and universities thanks to the HOPE Scholarship, which began in 1993.
Miller's politican career began when he was elected mayor of Young Harris from 1959 to 1960, then serving as a state senator from 1961-64. He served as lieutenant governor for 16 years, and remains the longest serving lieutenant governor in Georgia history.
As president of the state Senate, Miller had legendary budget battles with his counterpart in the state House, Speaker Tom Murphy, who was also the longest serving state House speaker. But in 1991, Miller announced he was running for governor and based his campaign on a state-run lottery that would benefit higher education in Georgia.
Bringing state-run gambling to Georgia has been considered a toxic political issue in a Bible-belt Southern state, but Miller rode the issue all the way to the governor's mansion, defeating fellow Democrats Andrew Young and Roy Barnes in the primary and Republican Johnny Isakson in the general election.
Despite a pledge to serve only one term, Miller was re-elected in 1994, with future Bill Clinton campaign manager James Carville running his campaign.
The HOPE (Helping Outanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarship is still a primary source of funding for aspiring college students to this day and is also used to fund the state's pre-kindergarten program. The program has aided more than 1.8 million students during that time.
According to Miller's official obituary, more than 1.6 million four-year olds have begun their education through Georgia’s Pre-K Program. "These were his proudest achievements in his 46-year career in public service," said Miller spokesperson Lori Geary.
Miller's successor, Roy Barnes, appointed his former Democratic gubernatorial opponent to the U.S. Senate after the death of incumbent Paul Coverdell in 2000. Miller easily won a special election later that year to the seat, where he served for five years.
READ | Zell Miller dead at 86
Miller was famously known to support both Republicans and Democrats, and earned the unflattering moniker "Zig-Zag Zell" among his opponents. Miller famously slammed his own party when he keynoted the 2004 Republican National Convention, delivering a blistering attack on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
The next day, Miller appeared on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, and appeared to challenge the political commentator to a duel.
Miller was also a prolific author, publishing his first book, “Mountains Within Me,” in 1975. In 2003, his reputation for bucking his own party flourished even more with “A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.”
