Aruna Miller
Aruna Miller is an American politician and civil engineer serving as the tenth lieutenant governor of Maryland since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, Miller previously represented District 15 in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2010 to 2019. Miller is the first South Asian woman elected lieutenant governor in the United States.
Miller ran for Congress in 2018 to represent Maryland's 6th congressional district, losing to David Trone in the Democratic primary. In December 2021, Wes Moore chose Miller as his running mate in the Democratic primary of the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election. They won the Democratic nomination on July 19, 2022, and defeated Republican nominee Dan Cox and his running mate Gordana Schifanelli on November 8, 2022.
Miller is the first Asian American lieutenant governor and first immigrant to hold statewide office in Maryland. Miller is the second woman to be elected lieutenant governor of Maryland after Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
Early life and education
Miller was born on November 6, 1964, in Hyderabad, India, into a Telugu Hindu family. Her family came to the United States when she was seven years old. Along with her two siblings and parents, she lived in Poughkeepsie, New York, where IBM employed her father, Rao Katragadda, as a mechanical engineer. She attended public schools in Upstate New York and Ballwin, Missouri. Miller earned a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.Career
Miller worked as a transportation engineer for local governments in California, Virginia, and Hawaii. She moved to Maryland in 1990, where she worked for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. She has overseen programs that advanced access to schools, employment centers, and community facilities that are safe for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, and people with differing abilities. In 2015, she retired from Montgomery County to devote her full attention to her service in the Maryland legislature.Miller became a citizen of the United States in 2000 and voted in the 2000 United States presidential election for Vice President of the United States Al Gore. She became frustrated with the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, and subsequently became involved with politics by volunteering to help other candidates get elected. During the 2004 United States presidential election, she worked as a precinct-level volunteer for the Democratic Party and presidential nominee John Kerry. In 2006, Miller was appointed to serve as an at-large member of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee and served in that position until 2010.
Maryland House of Delegates
After state delegate Craig L. Rice announced that he would run for the Montgomery County Council in 2010, activists in the Montgomery County Democratic Party called Miller to ask her to run. She initially declined to run, but changed her mind after talking with her husband. Miller won the election to represent District 15 in the Maryland House of Delegates, but assumed office a month early due to Rice's resignation to take office on the Montgomery County Council. Miller received support from fellow members of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee, who voted to recommend that Governor Martin O'Malley appoint her to finish the last month of Rice's term. Miller was the first Indian American woman to be elected to the Maryland Legislature.In 2012, Miller served as an at-large delegate to the Democratic National Convention, pledged to President Barack Obama.
In her first term, Miller served on the Ways and Means Committee and its Revenue, Transportation, and Education Subcommittees. In her second term, Miller served on the Appropriations Committee, where served as chair of the Oversight of Personnel Subcommittee, vice chair of the Transportation and Environment Subcommittee, and vice chair of the Capital Budget Subcommittee.
Committees and commissions
Source:- President, Women Legislators of Maryland, Maryland General Assembly, 2016–2017
- Chair, House Appropriations Oversight of Personnel Subcommittee, 2015–2019
- Vice-chair, House Appropriations Transportation and Environment Subcommittee, 2015–2019
- Vice-chair, House Appropriations Capital Budget Subcommittee, 2016–2019
- Member, Maryland Advisory Council for Virtual Learning, 2012–2015
- Commissioner, Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, 2013–2019
- Member, Business Climate Work Group, Maryland General Assembly, 2013–2014
- Member, Joint Committee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Biotechnology, 2015–2019
- Member, Joint Committee on Fair Practices and State Personnel Oversight, 2015–2019
- Founding Member, Maryland Legislative Asian-American, and Pacific-Islander Caucus 2015–2019
- Member, Maryland Sexual Assault Evidence Kit Policy and Funding Committee, 2017–2019
- Commissioner, 21st Century School Facilities Commission, 2016–2017
- Member, Maryland State Ethics Commission, 2019–2020
2018 congressional election
Despite having received the most individual donations out of her Democratic opponents, Miller was outspent in the primary 13:1 by David Trone, the largest self-funding congressional candidate in U.S. history, and lost the primary to Trone by 9.3%, with 30.7% of the vote compared to Trone's 40.0%, and consequently did not advance to the general election. She won Montgomery County but this was the only voting district she won outright. Had she been elected, Miller would have been the only woman in Maryland's congressional delegation.
Post-legislative career
In February 2019, Miller was named the new executive director of Indian American Impact.In January 2021, Miller filed paperwork to run for Congress again had Trone decided against running for a third-term. After Trone launched his re-election bid on May 7, Miller declined to comment on her 2022 plans.
Lieutenant Governor of Maryland
Elections
2022
In December 2021, Wes Moore selected Miller as his running mate in the Democratic primary of the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election. The Moore-Miller ticket won the Democratic primary election on July 19, 2022.The ticket defeated Republican nominees Dan Cox and Gordana Schifanelli in the general election on November 8, 2022. Miller is the first South Asian woman elected lieutenant governor in the United States, and the first Asian American lieutenant governor and first immigrant to hold statewide office in Maryland. Miller served as the chair of the transition team for Governor-elect Moore.
2026
On September 9, 2025, Moore announced that he would run for re-election with Miller as his running mate in 2026.Tenure
Miller was sworn in on January 18, 2023. She took the oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita, making her first lieutenant governor to do so.In February 2023, Miller became the first woman of color to chair the Maryland Board of Public Works meeting after Governor Moore recused himself from a vote related to a contract between the Maryland Department of Health and Under Armour, a company he has financial holdings in. In October 2024, Miller and Comptroller Brooke Lierman presided over the Board of Public Works, marking the first time in Maryland history in which only women presided over the meeting.
Miller was an at-large delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, pledged to Kamala Harris and served as a member of the DNC Rules committee. Miller traveled out of state to battleground state of Michigan in support of the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign In the 2024 presidential election, Miller voted as an elector pledged to Harris.