Civil Rights Attorney Tanya Miller Wants to Champion the People in Bid for Attorney General

Early voting for the Georgia primaries is underway, and the seat of attorney general is up for grabs, with prosecutor and civil rights attorney Tanya Miller hoping to take the helm as the state’s chief legal officer. 

With over two decades of experience in the courtroom, Miller is uniquely positioned for this moment. But before she joined the front lines of justice, she shared that she grew up in a working-class home where they lived “one paycheck away from complete and utter disaster.” Miller said watching her mother work hard day in and day out and struggle to make ends meet helped her deeply understand the plight of working people. 

“I wished someone would fight for my mom, and I was ultimately driven by that; I took on the role of her protector, even at a young age,” Miller said. “I guess it was just my personality, but that feeling that people need someone to stand up for them is what drew me to the law, what sent me to law school, and really has shaped the way that I view the use of my talent and my skill as a lawyer.”

Miller is a Georgia State Representative (District 62) who has worked as a state and federal homicide prosecutor and civil rights lawyer, fighting for women, children, families, the injured, and wrongfully accused. Through her work, she has become a voice for Georgians, working on their behalf. She views the attorney general’s office as an opportunity to continue that work at scale. 

“It is really what the office should be about. It’s not what it has been about. But certainly, there is great potential in that office to do really wonderful work on behalf of working families all across the state of Georgia. It is not lost on me that this is a moment in our history where we have to give everything we have to protect our rights,” Miller said. “This moment in our history feels like the time where everybody has to be all hands on deck to fight for our democracy.”

Miller’s platform and what she hopes it means to the people of Georgia is summed up in three words: lawyer, watchdog, protector. She hopes to build a Georgia that is safer for children and the community and fairer for workers and small businesses. For Miller, that looks like targeting and dismantling violent criminal networks and human trafficking rings, prioritizing the prosecution of crimes against children and domestic violence, holding people accountable no matter how powerful they are, cracking down on consumer fraud, safeguarding the right to vote and fighting discrimination in all forms, challenging unfair and unjust rate hikes from power and utility monopolies and launching investigations into the grocery supply chain to uncover elements that are artificially inflating the cost of food.

One of her commitments is to champion small businesses, ensuring a level playing field so they can compete and grow alongside larger corporations. 

“Ultimately, the platform that I am running on takes into account small businesses just as much as it does working and middle-class families. We also know that the insurance industry has literally been having its way with small businesses and working families in this state for the better part of a decade. They go largely unregulated. If they are regulated, it is performance only, and that really needs to change. 

“I think the attorney general needs to take a more active role when insurance companies deny claims en masse—like we saw them do in California to a larger extent with the fires and to a smaller extent here in Georgia with the hurricanes—and also in the rate-setting process. Someone needs to be a voice for the people when it comes to these big corporations that just get away with delaying, denying, cheating, and, in some instances, it’s akin to theft.”

Miller was critical of the current attorney general, Chris Carr. She believes he has not taken on the “big fights” to protect Georgians and has treated the position from the point of view of a politician, not a prosecutor.

“Prosecutors get up and go to work every day, saying, ‘How are we making life better for the community?’ Our job every day is to get up and choose to do the right thing, to follow the law, and what we have seen is silence in the face of some of the biggest challenges that the state has faced. 

“We have had multiple environmental catastrophes. Where has the attorney general been? We’ve had the federal government come down here and seize ballots from 2020. Where has the attorney general been? We had a $140 million Ponzi scheme that happened on his watch that fleeced hundreds of Georgians out of their hard-earned money. Where has he been? He has largely been silent when it matters the most.”

Miller was vocal about her commitment to investigating and tackling price gouging resulting from natural disasters and companies that use those moments to cheat Georgians when they are most vulnerable, and the housing crisis, due in part to corporate property owners colluding with each other using artificial intelligence to keep rents artificially high.

Miller encouraged Georgians to vote early and emphasized that their vote matters and counts in influencing the direction of the state and country. 

She said she hopes Georgians view her campaign and career as a showcase of her care and love for people. 

“I have a record of standing up for people and taking on bullies and being relentless in that fight. I want them to know and believe, if I had my choice, that I am who I say I am, and that I’m going to do what I say I’m going to do. I think this office belongs to the people. I think all elected offices belong to the people. And I view their vote, and ultimately, if I am selected, their choice for me as not a position that I have gained, but really as a trust that I hold for them and for the purpose of doing good work for them.”

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