Secretary of State’s Top Aide to Seek Her Office

SACRAMENTO — Democrat Tony Miller, longtime chief deputy to Secretary of State March Fong Eu, announced that he will run for her office with her endorsement.

Miller said he is the first openly gay candidate for a major party nomination for statewide elective office in California.

“I have been open about my sexuality for a long time,” he told a Capitol news conference. “I’m not hiding anything. I never have. It shouldn’t be an issue. It certainly doesn’t affect my job performance. . . . I am offering good government to everybody, including lesbians and gays.”

Eu is expected to resign early next year if she is confirmed as President Clinton’s ambassador to Micronesia in the South Pacific. The secretary of state oversees elections, logs campaign financing and keeps other kinds of official records.

Miller said he will campaign on the need to sever the connection between lobbyists and election campaign contributions in a “system that has gone amok.” In his own campaign, he said, he will not solicit donations from lobbyists.

Miller said he favors “sensible” campaign contribution and spending limits, and he has prepared legislation to prohibit lobbyists from making or arranging unlimited campaign contributions, as they are permitted to do now.

As chief deputy secretary of state, Miller recently offered the more than 1,000 members of the Capitol’s lobbying corps the opportunity to go on record saying they no longer were available as a source of campaign funding. As of Tuesday, 46 lobbyists had taken him up on the offer.

“How many more we will get, I don’t know, but there is a lot of interest in the lobbying community about that whole concept,” he said.

Other announced or likely Democratic candidates for secretary of state are former Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Woo and Assemblywomen Gwen Moore of Los Angeles and Jackie Speier of Burlingame.