Edythe Evelyn Gandy (September 4, 1920 – December 23, 2007) was an American attorney and politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 1976 to 1980. A Democrat who held several public offices throughout her career, she was the first woman elected to a statewide constitutional office in Mississippi. Born in Hattiesburg, she attended the University of Mississippi School of Law as the only woman in her class. Following graduation, she took a job as a research assistant for United States Senator Theodore Bilbo. She briefly practiced law before being elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where she served from 1948 to 1952. Defeated for re-election, she worked as director of the Division of Legal Services in the State Department of Public Welfare and Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi until she was elected State Treasurer of Mississippi in 1959.
Following an unsuccessful campaign for the office of lieutenant governor in 1963, Gandy was appointed State Welfare Board commissioner. She was re-elected state treasurer and served again in that role from 1968 to 1972. She subsequently became insurance commissioner, and in that capacity she investigated false advertising, lobbied for the passage of a no-fault insurance law, pushed for stronger licensing requirements for insurance agents, and restructured the Mississippi Insurance Department. In 1975 she ran a successful campaign to be elected lieutenant governor, thus becoming the first woman to serve in that role in Mississippi and in the Southern United States. Following unsuccessful gubernatorial campaigns in 1979 and 1983, Gandy returned to the practice of law. She remained publicly active in women's organizations and state Democratic politics until her death in 2007.
Early life Edythe Evelyn Gandy was born on September 4, 1920, to Kearney C. Gandy and Abbie Whigham Gandy in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States. Her parents encouraged her from a young age to pursue what interests she had without regard for her gender. She later credited her father, who had supported the women's suffrage movement, with being particularly supportive of her ambitions. She attended Hattiesburg High School, and in her senior year served as president of the debate club and edited the school yearbook and newspaper. Graduating from high school in 1938, she attended Mississippi Southern College before studying law at the University of Mississippi School of Law in Oxford. The only woman in her 1943 law school class, she won a state women's oratorical contest in 1941 and was the first woman to be elected president of the law school student body. She was also the first woman to edit the Mississippi Law Journal.
Following graduation from law school, Gandy sought to join the United States armed forces during World War II, but was disqualified due to nearsightedness. She then took a job as a research assistant in the office of Mississippi United States Senator Theodore Bilbo in Washington, D.C., as Bilbo was a family friend. During her employment Bilbo published a book detailing his views on racial segregation, entitled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization. Gandy was widely suspected to be the ghost writer of the work, and she later admitted to conducting most of the research for the book. In 1947, she opened a law practice. The following year she was elected treasurer of the Mississippi State Bar Association. She served as second vice president of the Hattiesburg chapter of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs from 1951 to 1952 and second vice president of the state chapter in 1951 before becoming first vice president the following year. She was appointed to a two-year term on the Mississippi Congress of Parents and Teachers board of managers.
Political career Early activities A Democrat, Gandy worked in the speaker's bureau of Paul B. Johnson Sr.'s 1939 gubernatorial campaign. She campaigned in 1947 to be elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives for the seat from Forrest County. She advocated for increased support for education, welfare, and the elderly. Billing herself as a racial segregationist, she supported the "Preservation of the customs and traditions of the South and enactment of the necessary legislation to preserve the white Democratic primary." One of her opponents, Lawrence D. Arrington, published an ad which asked "Do you believe that the legislative affairs of Forrest County can best be handled by a man or a woman?" The ad continued by suggesting that some elements of political activity would be inappropriate for a "young girl". She defeated Arrington in a primary runoff and was sworn-in in early 1948, working in the legislature for one four-year term. She closed her law practice to focus on her legislative duties but in September became a legal researcher for the State Department of Public Welfare.
In the House, Gandy was assigned to the ways and means, judiciary, eleemosynary institutions, colleges and universities, and claims committees. She introduced a successful bill to raise bond money for Hattiesburg city school construction and proposed another bill that would authorize Mississippi Southern College to establish its own nursing and law schools. She proposed other bills to establish a state department of labor and a state cosmetology board. After losing a bid for re-election to her House seat in the 1951 Democratic primary to Donald Colmer, Gandy became director of the Division of Legal Services in the Department of Public Welfare, where she served until she announced her resignation in February 1959, effective March 31.
State offices In 1959 Gandy campaigned for election to the office of State Treasurer. Her main opponent was former Jackson mayor and investment banker Leland S. Speed. She attacked his credibility, arguing that his business connections disqualified him from handling public funds. She won, making her the first woman to be elected to a Mississippi statewide constitutional office and the second elected to a statewide office overall (after State Tax Collector Nellah Massey Bailey). On September 1, 1959, Gandy was appointed Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi by State Attorney General Joe Patterson. Serving in only a temporary capacity pending her swearing-in as state treasurer in January 1960, she was the first woman to hold the office. She served as state treasurer from 1960 to 1964, leaving office as state law at the time did not allow the treasurer to run for consecutive terms.
In 1963 Gandy ran for the office of Lieutenant Governor. Facing four opponents, she campaigned on her experience in government, pledging to focus on economic issues and education. She promised to treat the position as a "full time job". Framing herself as a segregationist, she supported states' rights, urging Mississippians to not support President John F. Kennedy and saying "We are now engaged in the greatest clash of Federal-State power which has occurred since the War Between the States one hundred years ago." Placing second in the first primary, she entered a runoff with the leading candidate, incumbent Carroll Gartin. He attacked her gender, with his campaign ads calling on voters to "elect a man". He won, taking 52 percent of the vote.
In 1964 Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. appointed Gandy as State Welfare Board Commissioner. During her tenure the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which required that all programs which received federal funds could not discriminate based on race. Despite her own segregationist views, Gandy signed a pledge affirming that the welfare board would not discriminate and integrated the reception areas of state welfare offices. In 1965, she oversaw the launch of a monthly newsletter for the State Department of Public Welfare, The Observer. That year Johnson appointed her to the new Commission on the Status of Women. She resigned effective April 30, 1967, to prepare for a second campaign for state treasurer.
Facing no opposition in the Democratic primary or general election, Gandy was re-elected as State Treasurer and served again from 1968 to 1972. During that time, she lobbied for changes to the State Depository Act and implemented new policies which allowed public funds deposited in private banks to earn interest, enabling the state to make an additional $4 million within a year of the new measure. She also implemented a program to deposit state funds equally across banks in the state. A fiscal conservative, she opposed an attempt to amend the state constitution to allow the state to borrow more money through bond issues.
In 1971 Gandy ran for the office of insurance commissioner. Appealing more openly to women voters, her campaign distributed special emery boards. She defeated insurance salesman Truett Smith in the Democratic primary, taking the largest number of votes among any candidate for any office in the primary, and was unopposed in the general election. Upon taking office on January 17, 1972, she initiated an investigation into false advertising, lobbied for the passage of a no-fault insurance law, and pushed for enhanced advertising regulations and stronger licensing requirements for insurance agents. During her tenure the department released a training guide for agents to familiarize them with state standards. She also restructured the Mississippi Insurance Department into three divisions: one to manage insurance claims, one to conduct industry oversight, and another to handle complaints. In 1974 she introduced new fire safety rules for mobile home construction. That year declared her support for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Since she was the highest-ranking woman politician in the state, the media frequently asked her about the ERA, and she told The Clarion Ledger, "I personally favor it. But I don't believe it is a priority item for Mississippi women. There are other matters of more importance [...] such as education and health care." She held the insurance commissionership until 1976.
Lieutenant governor With her term as insurance commissioner coming to a close, Gandy declared herself a candidate for the office of lieutenant governor in 1975. Her platform focused on improving job opportunities, particularly by expanding vocational training. She repeated her promise from 1963 that she would treat the position as "full time" and also called for government restructuring and campaign finance reform. Unlike in previous years, her campaign literature omitted any mention of her employment under Senator Bilbo. She led the first Democratic primary and won the runoff, against Brad Dye, with 52 percent of the vote. In the general election she faced Republican Bill Patrick, whom she defeated with 70 percent of the vote, thus becoming the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor in Mississippi and in the Southern United States. She was sworn in on January 14, 1976.