Former Gov. Miller’s book details political success, love for family

CARSON CITY — You could differ with Bob Miller politically and remain his friend, but don’t dare cross his family.

That’s the pervasive feeling one gets reading “Son of a Gambling Man,” the autobiography of Nevada’s longest-serving governor.

The 242-page autobiography, available Tuesday in bookstores, is an anthem to Miller’s love for his family, particularly his father, Ross, a one-time illegal gambler from Chicago accused of having ties to the mob.

In his autobiography, Miller remains the same kind of modest, unassuming man he was during his 1989-99 reign as governor, but he shows surprising hostility toward political foes and the national press who dared suggest there was something tawdry about his own political life or his father’s past, a past Miller writes “he successfully kept hidden from me.”

His father, who at times had ownership interest in the Riviera, Slots-A-Fun and Circus Circus, died in 1975.

But Ross Miller remains quite alive in the memories of his son, whose climb from lawyer, to justice of the peace, to Clark County district attorney, to lieutenant governor and on to governor was his form of vindicating his father.

“Ross Miller’s shadow would always be with me, but I would spend some of my career trying to step outside the shadow cast by some of his more un­savory associates,” Miller wrote.

“Son of a Gambling Man” is a fun read for any political junkie and any longtime Nevadan with nostalgia for an era when the state grew up. You cannot help but like Bob Miller, who at one point refers to himself as a “klutz,” but who always made the right career and political choices.

His rise from gambler’s son to governor parallels the rise of Las Vegas from the tiny desert town that welcomed Bugsy Siegel, Moe Dalitz and the Teamsters pension fund to the all-American city loved by millions of people around the world.

In an interview Thursday, Miller said that was his plan.

“Las Vegas was unique in that we still were in the formative stages,” said Miller, who arrived in 1955. “Nobody knew how to run it. You needed people like my dad.”

Initially, he wanted to write a book that dealt mostly on politics and his governorship, but family members encouraged him to write a “more personable” book.

The funniest part of the book is when Miller acknowledges how awkward he was socially and how he courted North Las Vegas teacher Sandy Searles, a North Las Vegas teacher of the deaf. He met her on a blind date arranged by a lawyer friend, Jeff Silver.

When Searles told him she loved him on their way to a softball game, Miller popped the question — and proceeded to hit four home runs in the game.

As lieutenant governor, Miller assumed the governorship in January 1989 after Gov. Richard Bryan resigned to take a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Miller mockingly became “acting” or “interim” governor. He was an unknown quantity in Reno and rural Nevada, scorned by many as someone who became governor only through luck.

That legislative session he earned the wrath of eight-time Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, not only for his support of mining taxes, but for his relentless opposition to a 300 percent pension increase for legislators.

Unlike legislators, Miller correctly read the public mood and vetoed the pension increase.

“I kept telling legislative leaders that the bill was a bad idea and I wouldn’t support it. But I couldn’t sway them. They were off in their own world, sequestered in the Legislature,” Miller wrote.

They overrode his veto in 85 minutes. And within months, the same legislators were begging him to call a special session so they could repeal the pension increase.

After that there was no doubt Miller was governor, a strong governor. For those who covered his career in Carson City, it remains his defining “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment.

He would be governor for a decade, support business tax increases, launch the class-size reduction program, approve truth-in-sentencing bills and earn the wrath of labor when he halted a pay increase for state employees.

The Miller era in state government has not ended. Bob Miller named his son Ross after his father, and Ross Miller is serving his second term as secretary of state. He still is in his 30s with an un­limited future.

“His name already being floated for higher office ... ,” the proud father writes in his autobiography.

In the most poignant portion of his autobiography, Miller wrote of how his father told him only once, on his deathbed, that he loved him.

“He was very stoic; he didn’t express his emotions openly,” Bob Miller said in an interview. “He believed the American way was that you create more opportunities for your children than you had. He made it possible for me. I tell my son how proud I am of him and that I love him, but maybe not as much as I should.”

His own father never saw his son’s rise to governor. At 67, Bob Miller may, although his son has not yet announced he wants that job.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.