Lloyd Meeds

Who was Lloyd Meeds?

Edwin Lloyd Meeds, an American politician, served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1965 to 1979. He represented the Second Congressional District of Washington as a Democrat.

Meeds was born in Dillon, Montana on 11 December 1927. While in high school, his family moved to Monroe, Washington. He served in the United States Navy from 1946 to 1947 and afterwards owned and operated a gas station. He earned his law degree from Gonzaga University in 1958.

Meeds first won election to the House by defeating incumbent Republican Alfred Westland in the election of 1964. Meeds won each of his subsequent bids for re-election with comfortable margins from 1966 up to 1974. In that year, when US District Court Judge George Boldt ruled that treaties entitled Native Americans to half of the fish caught in their usual and customary fishing grounds, Meeds angered many of his constituents with his comment that the tribes had the law on their side and that people needed to move on. As a result, he won his 1976 reelection by only 542 votes, which led to his announcement that he would retire from the House to return to practicing law in 1979.