Bob Miller’s book shows his incredible sense of timing

Former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller knows how to be in the right place at the right time.

Miller was in the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968, to hear a speech by aspiring presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Moments after ducking out of the ballroom where Kennedy gave his victory speech, the New York senator was fatally wounded by an assassin’s bullets.

A few years later, Miller — then a student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles — was working as a California Superior Court bailiff. He was escorting infamous “Onion Field” cop killer Jimmy Lee Smith to his retrial when Smith made some incriminating statements. Miller told the prosecutor, who wanted to put Miller on the stand to report the conversation. The judge, however, ruled the testimony couldn’t be offered.

But Miller’s most fortuitous place in history was getting elected lieutenant governor of Nevada in 1986. That made him acting governor two years later, when incumbent Gov. Richard Bryan was elected to the U.S. Senate, paving the way for Miller to become the longest-serving governor in Nevada history.

These and other stories form the basis of Miller’s new book, “Son of a Gambling Man: My Journey from a Casino Family to the Governor’s Mansion.” And whether you’re a history buff, political junkie or somebody who appreciates Nevada’s lightning-fast development over the past 30 years, this book has something for you.

That’s because Miller has seen it all, coming to Las Vegas in 1955 with his dad, an illegal bookmaker in Chicago gone legit in Nevada’s legal gambling industry. In the so-called golden age of Las Vegas, before a hotel college or corporate ownership of casinos, it was up to refugees from the illegal gambling world to make the casinos run.

Mob influence was everywhere, which would come to haunt Miller when he went into politics. No matter how strong a law-enforcement background (his work as a bailiff, a deputy district attorney and district attorney of Clark County), Miller was pilloried in campaigns about his father’s past. But those allegations never stopped him from winning.

What’s striking about the book, however, is not just how much the city and state have changed, but how much they haven’t.

Miller instituted a class-size reduction plan when he took over for Bryan; that issue is still being debated today. Miller called for increased taxes on the mining industry; that’s a controversy in the current Legislature, too. Funding cuts for mental health programs plagued the state then; advocates today say things are still abysmal for those with mental illness.

One thing may be different, however: Miller says he risked being elected governor in his own right by advancing taxes and the costly class-size reduction plan when he took over as acting governor in 1988. But his philosophy — “what’s the sense of being here if you don’t do something that makes a difference”? — is growing rarer all the time in politics.

In his book, Miller is constantly amazed about how the son of a bookmaker eventually rose to consort with presidents (Bill Clinton writes the forward).

But Miller in person is still as down-to-earth and unassuming as any ex-state chief executive can be. It’s as if he’s still amazed to have been in so many right places at so many right times.

Miller will sign copies of his book at 7 p.m. tonight at the Barnes & Noble store at 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd., at Lake Mead Boulevard.

He’ll also sign copies from 10 a.m. to noon Friday at the Hudson Group bookstore at McCarran International Airport, in the pre-screening area between the A/B and C gates.

Drop by and see if he’ll tell you a story or two.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.