Jamie L. Whitten

Jamie Lloyd Whitten (April 18, 1910 – September 9, 1995) was a United States Representative from Mississippi, who was of English and Swedish descent. He is the second-longest serving U.S. Representative ever and the fourth longest serving U.S. member of Congress ever.

Early life

Jamie Whitten was born in Cascilla, Mississippi. He attended local public schools and the University of Mississippi, and he briefly served as an educator before joining the bar in 1932.

U.S. House of Representatives

Committee assignments

Throughout most of his tenure in the House, Whitten served on the Appropriations Committee, ultimately serving as Chairman from the 1979 retirement of George H. Mahon until newly elected Democrats in the House Democratic Caucus removed him in favor of William Huston Natcher after the 1992 election.

Elections

In 1941, Whitten was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives in a special election to represent the state's 2nd District, in the northern part of the state. The seat had come open as a result of incumbent Congressman Wall Doxey's election to the United States Senate. He was elected to a full term in 1942 and was reelected 25 more times. His district was renumbered as the 1st District after the 1970 Census.

Tenure

His service from November 4, 1941 to January 3, 1995 set a record for length of service in the House, which remained unbroken until February 11, 2009, when Michigan Congressman John Dingell surpassed it. Whitten is also the 4th Longest serving Congressman (House and/or Senate) behind Carl T. Hayden, Robert Byrd and John Dingell.

Whitten was originally a very conservative segregationist, as were many of his colleagues from Mississippi and the rest of the South. He signed the Southern Manifesto condemning the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education, which desegregated public schools. Along with virtually the entire Mississippi congressional delegation, he voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965 and 1968. Whitten later apologized for these votes, calling them a "mistake" caused by severe misjudgment. He voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Later in his career he voted for many liberal issues and frequently clashed with the Reagan administration on policy matters. He voted against Reagan's economic plans, tax cuts, increased defense spending, balanced budget initiative, tort reform, welfare reform, abortion restrictions, missile defense system, and the Persian Gulf War. Although Whitten represented a district that grew increasingly suburban and Republican from the 1970s onward, his opposition to Reagan's program did not affect him at the ballot box. Indeed, his seniority and popularity resulted in him facing only "sacrificial lamb" opponents on the occasions he faced any opposition at all. Nonetheless, it was correctly taken for granted that he would be succeeded by a Republican when he retired (Republican Roger Wicker became the successor).

Declining to run for reelection to a historic 28th term in 1994, Whitten retired from the House as America's longest serving Congressman (53 years and two months). He retired to his home in Oxford, Mississippi and died there on September 9, 1995, aged 85, eight months after leaving office.

Jamie Whitten Historical Site

The Jamie Whitten Historical Site is located at the bridge of the Natchez Trace Parkway over the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, two projects that Whitten had successfully fought to fund over his house tenure, overcoming strong opposition from Conservatives to their construction using federal funds.

He was also noted as the author of That We May Live, written largely as a pro-development, pro-chemical pesticide answer to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the seminal 1962 book that helped to spur the modern environmental movement.

In June 1995, Congress renamed the main headquarters building of the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC the Jamie L. Whitten Building in his honor.^[1]

References

External links

• Jamie L. Whitten at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress