Jack Bascom Brooks

Jack Bascom Brooks

Jack Brooks (back, right) as an eyewitness to President Lyndon B. Johnson's swearing in aboard Air Force One following the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy.

Jack Bascom Brooks (born December 18, 1922 in Crowley , Louisiana , † December 4, 2012 in Beaumont , Texas ) was an American politician . He represented the state of Texas in the US House of Representatives for 40 years .

Life

Jack Bascom Brooks was born in Crowley in 1922 and moved to Texas at the age of five. He attended Lamar University and the University of Texas at Austin . He served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II . After the war, he was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1947 to 1951 . The following year, Brooks was elected to the US House of Representatives as a Democrat for the Texas Second Constituency . During the 1950s and 1960s he was one of several Liberal Southern MPs on labor and civil rights issues, being more conservative on questions of the death penalty and gun control. Brooks was part of the Democratic delegation when US President John F. Kennedy visited Texas in November 1963. After the assassination attempt on the president in Dallas , he was an eyewitness to the swearing-in of Lyndon B. Johnson as Kennedy's successor aboard Air Force One .

In 1966 he changed constituencies and from then on represented the ninth district of Texas. Brooks was also chairman of the Committee on Government Operations from 1975 to 1988, and the Justice Committee from 1989 and 1995 . In 1967, Brooks was one of the first to express his fear of the US Patent Office's efforts to introduce software patenting guidelines.

When the House of Representatives first requested financial disclosure in the late 1970s, it was revealed that Brooks was one of the richest men in Congress. He had acquired a number of banks and other businesses during his years in office. In 1994, Brooks was beaten by Republican Steve Stockman . Brooks' endorsement of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act , which ultimately ushered in the Federal Assault Weapons Ban , established as a change in law, most likely contributed to his defeat , despite his lifetime membership in the National Rifle Association .

A park in Galveston County and a state courthouse in Beaumont bear his name.

Web links

Commons : Jack Brooks  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Jack Bascom Brooks in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Longtime SE Texas US Rep. Jack Brooks dead at 89. Retrieved December 5, 2012 (English).