Lee E. Geyer

Lee Edward Geyer (September 9, 1888 – October 11, 1941) was an American educator and World War I veteran who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1939 to 1941. He died in office during his only term in Congress.

Early life, education and career Born in Wetmore, Kansas, Geyer attended the public schools, graduated from Baker University in 1922, and afterwards did post-graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. He was a teacher in the rural schools in Nemaha County, Kansas from 1908 to 1912 and principal of Hamlin (Kansas) High School between 1916 and 1918.

Geyer married Nellie Lucille Cordts on December 11, 1919.

World War I During the First World War, Geyer served as a private in the Third Company, First Battalion, Central Officers' Training School, Camp Grant, Illinois.

Geyer was later a teacher and administrator in high schools in Kansas, Arizona and California from 1919 to 1938.

Political career State Assembly Geyer was one of two dozen "EPIC Democrats" elected to the state legislature in 1934. He served as member of the State Assembly from 1935 to 1937. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1936 to the seventy-fifth Congress.

Congress Geyer was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-sixth and Seventy-seventh Congresses and served from January 3, 1939, until his death. He authored the first anti-poll tax legislation which had not passed at the time of his death but was continued by others to become the 24th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He served as delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Death Geyer died of pneumonia on October 11, 1941, in Washington, D.C. He was interred in Wetmore Cemetery, Wetmore, Kansas.

Electoral history