J. T. Rutherford

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J. T. Rutherford
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 16th district
In office January 3, 1955 – January 3, 1963
Preceded by	Kenneth M. Regan
Succeeded by	Ed Foreman
Member of the Texas Senate from the 29th district
In office January 13, 1953 – September 27, 1954
Preceded by	Hill D. Hudson
Succeeded by	Frank Owen, III
Member of the Texas House of Representatives from the 88th district
In office January 11, 1949 – January 13, 1953
Preceded by	George W. Elliott
Succeeded by	Elbert Reeves
Personal details
Born	J T Rutherford (1921-05-30)May 30, 1921 Hot Springs, Arkansas, U.S.
Died	November 6, 2006(2006-11-06) (aged 85) Arlington, Virginia, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Sara Jane Armstrong ​ ​ (m. 1948; died 2004)​
Children	3
Alma mater	Angelo State University Sul Ross State University Baylor Law School
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	1942-1946
Rank	Major
Battles/wars	World War II D-Day Pacific Theater of Operations

J T Rutherford (May 30, 1921 – November 6, 2006), was an American lawyer and World War II veteran who served as a Democratic United States Congressional Representative for 4 terms from 1955 to 1963. He previously served as a state legislator from the state of Texas.

He was born to James Thaddeus Rutherford and the former Nancy Lillian Johnson in Hot Springs, Arkansas.^[1] In 1934, his family relocated to Odessa, Texas, where he attended public schools.

He served as an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946, of which twenty-eight months were spent overseas. He was awarded the Purple Heart. As an assault amphibian vehicle crewman, he landed in the first waves on D-Day at Tarawa, Saipan, where he was wounded, and Tinian. He retired as a major in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.

From 1946 to 1947, Rutherford studied at San Angelo College in San Angelo. He then transferred to Sul Ross State College in Alpine, which he attended from 1947 to 1948. From 1948 to 1950, he attended Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas.

In 1948, Rutherford married the former Sara Jane Armstrong, and the couple had three children, Cleo Ann, Charles Lane Rutherford, and Jane Ellen.^[1] Rutherford was a partner in an industrial electrical construction firm and also owned an advertising business.

Rutherford served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1948 to 1952 and the Texas State Senate from 1953 to 1954.

He was elected to the 84th to 87th United States Congresses from January 3, 1955, to January 3, 1963. An unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1962 to the 88th United States Congress, Rutherford was unseated by Republican Ed Foreman of Odessa, later of Dallas. His loss to Foreman was attributed to the Billie Sol Estes scandal.^{[citation needed]} He missed only one floor vote of the several thousand cast while he was a representative.^{[citation needed]}

He was one of the majority of the Texan delegation to decline to sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. Rutherford voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960,^[2][3] but voted in favor of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[4]

He was the first chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks. He was awarded the U.S. Department of Interior's Conservation Service Award in 1962 for his efforts to spearhead conservation legislation including laws that created a new national seashore on Padre Island, Cape Cod National Seashore, and Point Reyes in California.

Rutherford's district was the old jumbo 16th district, Midland being its eastmost point and El Paso at its westmost. It also stretched hundreds of miles along the border with Mexico. The 19 counties it embraced covered 42,067 square miles—making it geographically larger than Ohio or Tennessee, among other states.

After leaving Congress, he formed J. T. Rutherford and Associates, a government relations consulting firm. He was a director of the Gonzales Warm Springs Foundation for Crippled Children, which was established in 1943 in Gonzales County, Texas. He was also a Shriner, another group which promotes the welfare of crippled children.^[1]

Rutherford died of complications of Alzheimer's disease in Arlington, Virginia, where he spent his later years.

• United States Congress. "J. T. Rutherford (id: R000547)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

• Obituary