Victor Veysey; Congressman, Assemblyman and Professor

Victor V. Veysey, a two-term Republican congressman and four-term member of the state Assembly from the Imperial Valley, has died.

Veysey, who served as assistant secretary of the Army during the Ford administration and taught for years at Caltech, later becoming director of the school’s Industrial Relations Center, died in Hemet, Calif., on Tuesday of congestive heart failure. He was 85.

In a varied career as a civil engineer, college professor and Brawley, Calif., rancher growing sugar beets, cotton, hay and grain, his legislative and congressional years lasted from 1963 until 1975.

When George Deukmejian became governor of California, he named Veysey to his Cabinet as director of industrial relations, but the nomination was forcefully opposed by organized labor and the state Senate rejected the appointment by a 20-13 vote.

He had frequently been a supporter of management views on farm labor questions and had taken aim at Democratic administrations for their support of farm laborers’ rights, which he said would result in higher consumer costs for food.

Veysey, was born April 14, 1915, in Eagle Rock and was raised there, but he also spent time at his father’s ranch in the Imperial Valley.

He graduated from Caltech in 1936 with a degree in civil engineering and earned an MBA in 1938 in industrial management at the Harvard Business School. After 11 years teaching at Caltech and Stanford, he moved to the Imperial Valley in 1949, where he began his public service by serving on the Brawley school board for seven years and the Imperial Valley college board for two.

He was elected to the Assembly in 1962 and became outspoken in opposition to Democratic Gov. Pat Brown on farm labor questions. During Brown’s unsuccessful bid for a third term in 1966, Veysey accused him of “distorting statistics” and an attempt to whitewash damage done by the loss of Mexican braceros on the state’s farms.

Elected narrowly to Congress in 1970 in a contest that was unsuccessfully challenged by the loser, Democrat Dave Tunno, Veysey became quite successful, being named to the powerful Appropriations Committee and boosting the development of geothermal power in the Imperial Valley.

But Democratic-engineered redistricting erased his seat, and Veysey failed in an attempt to win a seat from a new district elsewhere in Southern California, being defeated by Democrat Jim Lloyd. He was the last resident of the Imperial Valley to serve in Congress.

As assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, Veysey worked at developing more environmental sensitivity in the water projects of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Veysey returned to California in 1978, and soon assumed directorship of Caltech’s Industrial Relations Center. He spent most of the last 20 years in Pasadena.

Veysey is survived by his wife of 60 years, Janet Donaldson Veysey; a daughter; three sons; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the First Presbyterian Church in Brawley. Family members have asked that donations be made to Caltech, the Imperial Valley College Foundation or to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.