Vucanovich, Barbara F. (Barbara Farrell), 1921-2013

Barbara Farrell Vucanovich (June 22, 1921 – June 10, 2013) was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, she was the first Latina elected to the United States House of Representatives as well as the first woman elected to the House from Nevada, representing its 2nd Congressional district from 1983 to 1997.

Born Barbara Farrell in Camp Dix, New Jersey, she was raised in Albany, New York, graduating from the Albany Academy for Girls in 1938 before attending the Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart from 1938 to 1939. She married James Henry Bugden at the age of 18 but became separated when her husband was assigned overseas during the war. She was employed by several New York businesses during the 1940s. In 1949, she moved to Reno, Nevada and obtained a divorce. In 1950 she married Kenneth Dillon. Widowed in 1964, she married George Vucanovich in 1965. They met while working on Lieutenant Governor Paul Laxalt's unsuccessful campaign in 1964 for the U.S. Senate. While raising her family, Barbara Vucanovich also owned and operated a speed reading school and a travel agency.

Vucanovich’s first experience in politics came in 1952 when she served as a delegate to the Nevada state GOP convention. Three years later, she won a one-year term as president of the Nevada Federation of Republican Women. She worked for Paul Laxalt for nearly 20 years while he served as Nevada’s lieutenant governor and governor. When Laxalt won election to the U.S. Senate, Vucanovich worked for him as manager of his district office and as a campaign adviser from 1974 until 1982. After the 1980 Census split Nevada into two congressional districts, Laxalt encouraged Vucanovich to run for the larger district. Painting herself as a social conservative and supporting the Reagan administration’s plan, one of lower taxes and reduced government spending, Vucanovich was easily elected.

Vucanovich lived up to her campaign persona as a fiscal and social conservative. She was one of a handful of women to consistently vote against any measure that permitted abortion or federal funding of the procedure and, in 1993, voted for a parental consent law. In 1984, she opposed the addition of an ERA plank in the GOP platform. Vucanovich also supported the death penalty and was a major recipient of National Rifle Association funding for her positions against gun control. In spite of her fiscal conservatism, following a diagnosis of breast cancer in 1983, she supported all efforts to increase medical research and treatment for women.

In 1996, at age 75, Vucanovich announced her retirement from Congress. She told reporters that she wanted to spend more time with her family. Her husband passed away in December 1998. In 2000, a post office in Nevada was named after Vucanovich to honor the state’s first female member of Congress. She died on June 10, 2013, in Reno, Nevada.