[2][3] While in office, she successfully introduced a bill for a "woman's minimum wage",[4][5][6] actively opposed the Bisbee Deportation,[7][8][9] criticized large mining companies including Phelps Dodge,[1] and sued a newspaper for libel.

[10] In 1919, her name was mentioned as a dark horse possibility for speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives.

[11][12] In 1920, she was one of the four women to introduce the resolution for Arizona to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment,[13] and she was considered a possible candidate for the state senate.

[14] Outside of her elected office, McKay was active in the Business and Professional Women's Club in Phoenix.

[2][16] "I belong to no labor organization or mining corporation", she wrote in an essay about the Bisbee Deportation for Appeal to Reason in 1917; "I am merely an onlooker and spectator, and a firm believer in the constitutional rights of all American citizens, whether by birth or naturalization, the rights that our forefathers fought, bled, and died for," she explained.