Berkley Bedell

Berkley Warren Bedell (March 5, 1921 – December 7, 2019) was an American Democratic Party politician and businessman who served as the U.S. representative for Iowa's 6th congressional district from 1975 to 1987.

After graduating from high school, he attended Iowa State University from 1940 to 1942, where he met fellow ISU student Elinor Healy (March 9, 1923 – March 2, 2017) from Saint Paul, Minnesota.

He graduated from Spirit Lake High School in 1939, where he earned spending money with a business in the midst of the Great Depression.

His business involved braiding dog hairs around fishhooks, the result of which could be sold as fish flies.

He began tying the fly-fishing lures in his bedroom, then he moved the business into his parents' basement.

In time, he got space above a grocery store to continue the business full-time.

Berkley's college and personal life was interrupted in 1942 when he joined the army.

He served in the United States Army as first lieutenant and flight trainer from 1942 to 1945.

When he got back, he began to garner success from his fishing tackle business.

Berkley and Elinor married in Minneapolis on August 29, 1943, and their son Kenneth was born in 1947, Thomas in 1950 and daughter Joanne in 1952.

He served as member of the Spirit Lake Board of Education from 1957 to 1962.

His business became larger, with hundreds of employees and international operations; he had become a millionaire by the 1960s.

By the early 1970s, Bedell had decided to run for political office.

After starting a successful business in his youth, Berkley Fly Co., he ran for Congress in 1972, but was defeated by incumbent Wiley Mayne.

In 1972, he ran against Wiley Mayne, a Republican incumbent in Iowa's 6th congressional district.

Mayne was a staunch supporter of Richard Nixon and secured victory along with the President in a year favorable to the Republicans.

In 1974 however, Bedell beat Mayne and was elected to the U.S. House.

He was known for his support of representative democracy and his populist style.

For example, he would hold town halls and let constituents vote on motions to decide what he would do in Congress on their behalf and these meetings helped Bedell understand the problems of his constituents; as a result, he backed issues that were important to his farming constituency, such as waterway usage fees and production constraints.

Mayne, however, would politically suffer after Watergate (he was one of only a few Republicans to vote against impeaching the President on the judiciary committee.) The damage had already been done, and Bedell defeated Mayne in a 1974 rematch.

During his time at Congress, Bedell took efforts to uphold representative democracy.

He held town halls regularly with his constituents, and he would let them vote on motions to decide what he would do in Congress on their behalf.

This type of communication told Bedell of the types of issues affecting his farming constituency.

Thus, though Bedell had not farmed in his life, he would take steps in Congress to benefit farmers.

Bedell sponsored several bold initiatives during his tenure in the United States House of Representatives.

One initiative, which came from his constituents' problems with the barge industry, focused on waterway usage fees.

He introduced legislation in 1977 that would require the barge industry to pay a fee for using the waterways which, Bedell pointed out, the Government paid millions of dollars to create and maintain.

Bedell's original plan set the rate the barge industry paid as directly related to the amount the Government spent on waterway projects.

This would have the additional effect of helping curb unnecessary waterway projects, and it was the same plan proposed by Pete Domenici in the Senate.

Congress eventually passed a watered-down version of the original plan put forward by Bedell and Senator Pete Domenici.

The compromise version enacted a tax on the gasoline barges used and put it into a "trust" for waterway projects.

While other supporters of waterway usage fees, including Domenici, backed the compromise, Bedell gave a passioned plea for his colleagues to oppose it.

He viewed it as lacking a crucial element of the original plan - that of capital recovery.

The trust was optional, and the Government could spend money on waterway projects irrespective of the trust.

The compromise was eventually signed by Jimmy Carter.

Bedell did not seek reelection in 1986 after contracting Lyme disease from a tick bite.

Though no longer serving in Congress, he remained active in Iowa politics, strongly supporting Howard Dean in 2004 over John Kerry.

In the 2008 presidential election, he met several times with Chris Dodd, but ultimately endorsed Barack Obama.

Bedell was born in Spirit Lake, Iowa, the son of Virginia Viola (Price) and Walter Berkley Bedell.

Bedell was educated in Spirit Lake public schools.