Bender was elected to the Ohio senate in 1920, serving there until 1930. During the 1930s Bender publish 2 Republican party magazines and authored a book promoting Wendell Willkie for president in 1940. He chaired the Republican Central Committee of Cuyahoga County from 1936-54 and controlled Republican affairs there.
After 4 unsuccessful attempts, Bender was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman-at-large in 1938, remaining until defeated in 1948, but returning again in 1950. When Robt. Taft died in 1954, Bender won the election to finish his Senate term, narrowly defeating THOS. A. BURKE. He lost his Senate seat in 1956 to Frank Lausche. In 1958, Jas. Hoffa hired Bender to chair a commission investigating racketeering in the Teamsters' Union. The Senate Rackets Committee and court-appointed Teamster monitors denounced the Bender commission as a whitewash, and he resigned from the commission in Jan. 1960, returning home to CHAGRIN FALLS, where he died at age 64.
Finding aid for the George Harrison Bender Papers. WRHS.
George Bender Papers, Ohio Historical Society.