east bay congressman george miller is retiring after 40 years in congress. a lifelong bay area resident he's been known as a tireless advocate for education, labor economic equality and the environment. he was part of the so-called watergate class right after nixon resigned. congress has become increasingly polarized. 2015 promises to continue on this path. scott shafer sat down with george miller to look back at his distinguished career. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> after 20 terms in congress, what does it feel like to be a short-termer? >> it is pretty exciting. i've had a wonderful career. i'm very proud of my body of work over those 40 years, those 20 terms, but i really believe it's time to come home. >> i want to talk to you about that decision in a minute. as you're leaving a lot of people have talked about your career and what you have accomplished. in your mind, what stands out as the thing that was most important that you helped get done or got done? >> for me, one of the ideas i worked on was access for poor and minority individuals in our society

plus, after four decades of public service, george miller reflects on his his career. >> the passage of the affordable care act is key to me. that was a huge milestone. >>> good evening. and welcome to "kqed newsroom." i'm thuy vu. tonight we reflect on the last year. joining me for the discuss are michelle quinn

plus, after four decades of public service, george miller reflects on his his career. >> the passage of the affordable care act is key to me. that was a huge milestone. >>> good evening. and welcome to "kqed newsroom." i'm thuy vu. tonight we reflect on the last year. joining me for the discuss are michelle quinn

where many of us have lost some of our greatest champions in the congress with the retirement of george miller and tom harkin, after 40 years, extraordinary careers. to have the people you just heard from and have john conyers committed despite a republican house and senate, he is dedicated. he will stay here. he will be here. i don't go if you do years, but he will be here for the anniversary in nine years and 22 days and it makes us all breathe easier. we in the nonprofit and social movement world we know it is a combination of heat from the streets and smart legislating from congress that will change this country. we are deeply honored and moved and thankful for what you have done. we would like to ask you to come up and say little bit. congressman conyers. congressman john conyers. [applause] >> [indiscernible] brothers and sisters let's give john cavanagh and karen dolan a round of applause for tonight to start off with. [applause] nothing could make me feel better than to have danny glover, steve cohen, jan schakowsky charlie rangel, julian bond, alan grayson marcus raskin, and barbara l

know this would be the latest in the line of them going, changing the guard from barbara boxer to george miller and pete stark and now possibly barbara lee. >> we'll talk about that with our political insiders later on but why barbara lee? why cuba? >> barbara lee has had a long relationship with the cuban government and the cuban people. she sponsored many trips down there for medical supplies, for cultural exchanges some 20 trips in the past decades she's headed up. she's personal friends with castro and raul castro. that would be the drawback is that she is too close to the cuban regime and that could have other people in the rest of the country saying we don't want to send that much of a friend down here. >> you heard it here first. barbara lee, possible ambassador to cuba. >> a plan to send more capitol vial crude oil throughout the bay area is a conversation. >> it is being proposed by vallero. they want to send more trains full of crude to the north and east bay every week. the oil is highly flammable and if something goes wrong on any of the train cars, the potential for disaster is hug

former represented george miller said, let's identify the problems let's pass a lean build and fix no child left behind. since then with the 24 hearings on k-12 or fixing no child left behind in each of the last two congress as we reported bills out of the committee. i would say to my colleagues that congress before last, it was mainly what one might call a democratic bill that i senator in the, senator kirk all voted for so we could get it to floor and continued to amend it. 22 of us 20 of the 22 of us on this committee were members in the last congress and we reported a bill. 16 of the 22 of us were members of this committee were in the previous congress when we report the bill so we ought to know the issues pretty well. one recent no child left behind needs to be fixed is it has become unworkable. under its original provisions almost all of america's 100,000 public schools would be labeled a failing school. to avoid this unintended result, the u.s. education secretary is granted waivers from the law's provisions to 43 states including washington which has since had its way for we v

george miller doesn't discuss it publicly. he put in a bill under our stress just for pro forma. never had a press conference. nancy pelosi doesn't discuss it. richard trumka of the afl doesn't discuss it. and the minimum wage today adjusted for inflation, as i mentioned, would put tens of billions of dollars at ten bucks an hour--tens of billions of dollars in people's hands to jump-start for the recessionary economy. biden could have skewered ryan, and he was muzzled because obama doesn't want to discuss this because he might be accused of being against small business, who he's given 18 tax breaks by his own admission on the first debate. 18 tax breaks, and 2/3 of all low-income workers are employed by 50 large corporations, like wal-mart and mcdonald's, whose ceos get an average of $10 million a year. and you think this was a slam dunk, but it isn't. so i think our presidential politics are rancid, repetitious, cowardly, and commercialized. so whoever wins, don't expect that much. >> ok. so... [applause] ralph, you've run for the presidency a number of times. so let's just hyp

started working on this we did this republicans democrats six years ago former representative george miller said let's identify the problems. let's pass a lien bill and fix no child left behind. since then we had 24 hearings on k-12 or fixing no child left behind. in each of the last two congresss we have reported bills out of the committee. i would say to my colleagues at congress before last it was mainly what one might call a democratic bill but we voted for it to get it to the floor and continue to amend it. 20 of the 22 of us on the committee were members of the last congress when we reported the bill. 16 of the 22 of us were in the previous congress when we reported the bill so we ought to know the issues pretty well. one reason no child left behind needs to be fixed is it has become unworkable. almost all of america's 100,000 public schools would be labelled a failing school. to avoid this unintended result the u.s. education secretary has granted waivers to 23 states including washington which has had its waiver revoked as well as district of columbia and puerto rico. this created a

george miller is back to bring this to the big screen again 30 years later. first one came out in 79. last one came out in 85 beyond thunderdome. now we are seeing 130 years later. fourth film in the franchise. that opens up on may 15th. it looks absolutely incredibly awesome. >> star wars. >> yes, now this movie you cannot deny how big a deal this movie will be. jj abrams brought this back to the big screen. this will take place 30 years after return of the jedi. he retreated star trek series. he did a great job of. that looking forward to see what he does here. original cast is returning mark hamill, carry fischer. but really no idea what this movie will bring. it looks a nation. it comes out december 18th. i'm looking forward to it so much. >> so long december. >> i know. >> never heard of it. >> this is quinton tarteno's latest film. i'm biggest fan on the planet. i have seen everyone of his movies a hundred times this is his eighth film. there is no trailer yet because they are starting to film in january but it will be the widest 70-millimeter release i

we would all tell you the follow, last night commerce committee meeting and ted kennedy and i george millerfred upton, john boehner, went into the basement on capitol and signed off con r on commerce committee report we almost said in unison if this works, because this will be impossible for schools to maintain ayp because it will get harder and harder to do. if we had done a reauthorization seven years ago a lot of problems we know there are do, wouldn't go on because we would have corrected that, that's number one. number two this is not a defensive speech i'm making here but for educational purposes. assessment was very important. disaggragation was more important and focusing on the individual student was most important and no child left behind did that. no child flew under the radar screen. everybody got in a disaggregated group by race or ethnicity or language or speech or disability whatever. we did something we always amalgamated everybody and averaged them out. set iowa es it of basic skills we're doing x. that wasn't anything good for little johnny who couldn't read i hate that re

congresswoman slaughter and then congresswoman george miller. there was a separate letter from republicans as you have pointed out that 27 members signed, there were individual members republicans and democrats who sent a letter. their individual letters saying they were opposed to fast track. so about 190 members, both democrats and republicans assigned letters saying they were opposed to fast track. another piece you should know about is there are 230 house members who signed a letter saying that without the issue being addressed of currency manipulation that they would not vote for the legislation. this does not include what's happening in the senate. i'm speaking only in the house. we're 60 in the senate, we have every reason to believe that we can defeat fast track. i think one of my colleagues said, in one of the conversations, that we have yet to see the people who support fast track from both parties on their feet in saying anything. and this coalition, this is not a one shot deal that we're here today. and we got everybody here. these a

and take a look at george, this is george miller. george is from philadelphia, pennsylvania also.>> thank you. 8:53 and 52 seconds. >> wait until it's 8:54. two, one, hit it. >> 8:54. >> we're watching paint dry. >> our continuing series. >> no we've got some great tips for you. how to save $2,015 in the year 2015. money back in your pocket. >> more of my conversation with an gentleman lee fla jolie. test. test test. >>> a very good friday morning to you. it's 8:56. i'm brock brock. three members of a family are dead in what police believe was a murder/suicide that happened around 9:00 last night. investigators say 0-2 men and with woman were shot and killed. the shooter is reportedly among the dead. a fourth victim was take on the hospital in critical condition. >>> during his first day on the job yesterday, san jose mayor the mayor visited the largest cold-weather shelter and helped serve dinner. he'd like to launch a pilot program that would convert underused hotel rooms to help homeless folks in san jose. >>> from nbc news that is "today's take" with al roker, natalie morales,

this is george miller from philadelphia, pennsylvania.cle willie. >>> 8:53:54. >> wait six seconds. >> hit it! and coming up we'll watch paint dry. >> our continuing series. no we've got great tips for you. how to save $2,015 in the year 2015 and get money back in your >>> let's get friday's first alert forecast from bill henley. >> good morning. a cold start especially in the pocono mountains with temperatures in the 20s. sunshine will break through the clouds, the view from camelback this morning temperatures are already starting to climb. it's 37 at philadelphia international at northeast philly 39 and climbing while it's 34 in rocksborough. sunshine and some passing clouds and a good deal of wind picking up to 18 miles per hour. partly sunny skyies today, wet weather for the weekend. >>> new this morning, philadelphia police are investigating a home invasion and possible robbery in west oak lane on 73rd avenue. police have not yet said if anyone was hurt or what may have been taken. still making calls on this we'll bring you an update

chairman george miller gave us some pretty good advice at the time. he said, let's pass a lean bill to fix no child left behind. we found over the last four years that there are not many problems with the bill, maybe eight or nine. on four or five, for example the goal, which is unrealistic today we probably can agree pretty quickly. so we're really talking about differences of opinion we have on four or five major areas and there are real differences of opinion. i hope we can bridge them in the committee and i'm going to do my best to do that. and i'm willing to spend all the time we need to over the next several days or weeks to -- to do that. but if we can't then we should vote and then we should go to the floor and we know, as i said, that we have to get 60 votes to get off the floor. we go to conference. then we have to get the president's opinion. if we send him a bill that gets a result. so i look forward to the pros. process. my goal is to start it with this working draft and with our first hearings, which will be a week from tomorrow, on test

miller. i work in agricultural insurance and i'd like to buy you a drink. how do you do, i'm ruth bader ginsburg. i'm georgeostanza. i'm certified public accountant david boynstein. my name's john jacob jingleheimer schmitt. what? that's your name too? what are the chances? call me the gooch. i'm the hamburglar. you can call me madman. andi with an "i." dic chem bow matumbo. my name's the rock. i am groot. fred. nice to see you again, we met before. remember? my name's indigo montoya. you killed my father. prepare to die. hi, i'm your majesty jackson. i'm five dollar footlong. tim? hi, how are you? my name's luigi mcpenis. yeah, how you doing? my name's kathie lee gifford. i'm dennis pokemon. yo yo ma. that's my name. hey, i'm magic mike. you can't see me. hi. my name is queen latifah. g can we put our mouths on each other? [ cheers and applause ] >> jimmy: thank you, benedict. queen what tee fa. tonight on the show, music from bad suns. abbi jacobson and ilana glazer. and be right back with danny devito, so stick around! [ cheers and applause ] ♪ [bassist] two late nights in tucson. blew an amp.but good ni