Jack Brooks Dies; Longtime Texas Congressman, Old School Democrat Passes Away at 89

Longtime Texas congressman Jack Brooks, who represented his Southeast Texas district for 42 years and was in the Dallas motorcade in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, has died, according to the Associated Press. He was 89-years-old.

The veteran congressman died Tuesday evening at Baptist Hospital of Beaumont after contracting an illness suddenly, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said a statement. Brooks - who was due to turn 90-years-old on Dec. 18 - was surrounded by family when he died, Deputy Rod Carroll said.

Brooks was one of the final remaining links to a distant, forgotten era of Texas politics when Democrats dominated the state. The former congressman was among the last of "Mr. Sam's Boys" - a group of politicians in the state's congressional delegation who modeled themselves after fellow Texan and iconic 21-year Democratic House Speaker Sam Rayburn.

"I'm just like old man Rayburn," Brooks, from Beaumont, Texas, once said. "Just a Democrat, no prefix or suffix."

Rayburn put Brooks on the House Government Operations Committee, a panel he would eventually chair. Brooks gained a reputation as a "curmudgeon-like" antagonist of bureaucrats, known for chiding them for wasting taxpayers' money.

"I never thought being a congressman was supposed to be an easy job, and it doesn't bother me a bit to be in a good fight," Brooks once said, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Brooks was in the Dallas motorcade the day President Kennedy was assassinated, Nov. 2, 1963. He also appears in the background of the infamous photograph of President Lyndon Johnson being sworn in, taken shortly afterwards aboard Air Force One at Dallas' Love Field airport. Brooks stands immediately behind a devastated Jacqueline Kennedy as Johnson, his right hand raised, takes the oath of office from U.S. District Judge Sarah Hughes.

Brooks was first elected to the House of Representatives in his far Southeast Texas district in 1952. He then returned to his office 20 more times and was on the cusp of becoming dean of the U.S. House when he was ousted in the Republican revolution of 1994, according to the Times.

Brooks set the legal precedent for requiring full and transparent competition when awarding federal contracts. The 1965 Brooks Act set policy for the government's computer acquisition program, requiring competitive bidding and central management. His Inspector General Act also established independent Offices of Inspector General in major agencies to prevent fraud and waste.

Brooks also worked to reduce federal paperwork, provide a uniform system of federal procurement, eliminated overlapping audit requirements and established the Department of Education.

Jack Bascom Brooks was born Dec. 18, 1922, in Crowley, La., and moved to Texas at age 5. He attended Lamar University in Beaumont, then a two-year school, and then earned a degree in journalism from the University of Texas. He served with the Marines in the Pacific in World War II and retired as a colonel from the Marine Corps Reserves in 1972. He received a law degree from the University of Texas and was a two-term Texas state legislator when he was elected to the U.S. House at age 29.