Meet Dorothy Hendee, the lone woman in the Colorado House of Representatives in the 1943-1944 session, who fought to allow women to serve on juries despite fierce opposition because of their “inability to assess evidence correctly.”
The Denver Republican, who died in 2003, described her legislative experience years later in a letter to the editor.
Women shouldn’t sit on juries, opponents said, because of “excess emotionalism, inability to assess evidence correctly, monthly disability/physical disability, and it would cost too much to put plumbing for women in the courthouses.”
Hendee’s story and the story of other women lawmakers who have served in the Colorado legislature has been shared on the House floor most mornings this month as part of Women’s History Month.
And tonight the Colorado Women’s Caucus held a bipartisan reception to mingle and do a little bit of boasting: With 42 out of 100 legislators being women, Colorado once again has the highest percentage nationally of female state legislators.
Hendee’s biography is part of a booklet “Women in the Colorado General Assembly.”
Among the other women profiled: the late Sen. Rena Mary Taylor, a Palisades Republican who died in 1980. In 1957 she introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty. It got out of committee, but died on the House floor. On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee will vote on a bill by Reps. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, and Jovan Melton, D-Aurora, that would abolish the death penalty.