Bedell, Catherine May, 1914-2004

Catherine Dean May Bedell (May 18, 1914 – May 28, 2004) was a U.S. Representative from Washington. A member of the Republican Party, she was the first woman elected to Congress in the state of Washington.

Born Catherine Dean Barnes in Yakima, Washington. She attended Yakima Valley Junior College before graduating from the University of Washington with a BA in English and speech in 1936. After earning a teaching certificate there the following year, she taught high school English in Chehalis, Washington from 1937 to 1940. In 1940 she pursued a radio broadcasting career in Tacoma and Seattle. On January 18, 1943, she married James O. May. The following year, while waiting for her husband to be discharged from the U.S. Army, Catherine May worked as a writer and assistant commentator for the National Broadcasting Company in New York City. The couple returned to Yakima in 1946, where James May established a real estate and insurance business while she worked as a women’s editor for a local radio station. The couple became active in politics after Charles Barnes, whose department store went bankrupt in the Great Depression, revealed that his great regret in life was not participating in local government to address public problems. The Mays joined the Young Republicans and became active precinct workers. In 1952, at James’s urging, Catherine May ran for a seat as Yakima’s representative in the Washington legislature. She served there for six years.

In 1958, May was elected as a Republican to the Eighty-sixth United States Congress. She was subsequently re-elected five times, serving from January 3, 1959 until January 3, 1971. While in Congress, May served on the House Agriculture Committee, ranking member of the House Beauty Shop Committee, and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Though she avoided defining herself as an activist, May supported women’s rights legislation during her House career. Like other Washington state Republicans in the 1970 election, May faced voter discontent with the stagnant local economy and rising jobless rate for which Democrats successfully blamed the GOP and the Nixon administration. She lost her 1970 re-election bid by a ten point margin.

Months before the election, May had divorced her husband after six years of legal separation. She married a management consultant, Donald Bedell, shortly after her November 1970 loss. President Nixon appointed her as chair of the U.S. International Trade Commission, where she served from 1971 to 1975 and from 1979 to 1980. In 1982 the Ronald Reagan administration named May a special consultant to the President on the 50 States Project, an effort to weed out gender-discriminatory state laws. Catherine May Bedell passed away in Rancho Mirage, California, on May 28, 2004.