{{short description|American politician}} {{Multiple issues| {{Lead too short|date=August 2018}} {{citation style|date=January 2012}} {{More citations needed|date=June 2023}} }} {{Infobox officeholder | name = J.T. Rutherford | image = J. T. Rutherford.jpg | state = Texas | district = {{ushr|TX|16|16th}} | term_start = January 3, 1955 | term_end = January 3, 1963 | preceded = Kenneth M. Regan | succeeded = Ed Foreman | state_senate1 = Texas | district1 = 29th | term_start1 = January 13, 1953 | term_end1 = September 27, 1954 | preceded1 = Hill D. Hudson | succeeded1 = Frank Owen, III | state_house2 = Texas | district2 = 88th | term_start2 = January 11, 1949 | term_end2 = January 13, 1953 | preceded2 = George W. Elliott | succeeded2 = Elbert Reeves | party = Democratic | birth_name = J T Rutherford | birth_date = {{birth date|1921|5|30}} | birth_place = Hot Springs, Arkansas, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2006|11|6|1921|5|30}} | death_place = Arlington, Virginia, U.S. | spouse = {{Marriage|Sara Jane Armstrong|1948|2004|end=died}} | children = 3 | alma_mater = Angelo State University<br > Sul Ross State University<br > Baylor Law School | allegiance = {{flagu|United States|1912|size=23px}} | branch = {{marines|United States}} | service_years = 1942–1946 | rank = Major | unit = | battles = *World War II **D-Day **Pacific Theater of Operations | footnotes = }}
'''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.
==Early life and career == He was born to James Thaddeus Rutherford and the former Nancy Lillian Johnson in Hot Springs, Arkansas.<ref name=whoswho>"J.T. Rutherford," ''Who's Who in America'', Vol 31 (1960-1961), (Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1960), p. 2504</ref> In 1934, his family relocated to Odessa, Texas, where he attended public schools.
===World War II === 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.
===Business career=== 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.<ref name=whoswho/> Rutherford was a partner in an industrial electrical construction firm and also owned an advertising business.
==Political career == Rutherford served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1948 to 1952 and the Texas State Senate from 1953 to 1954.
===Congress === 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 | date=February 2022}} He missed only one floor vote of the several thousand cast while he was a representative.{{citation needed | date=February 2022}}
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,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/h42|title=HR 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957.|work=GovTrack.us}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/86-1960/h102|title=HR 8601. PASSAGE.}}</ref> but voted in favor of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/h42|title=HR 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957.|work=GovTrack.us}}</ref>
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.
==Later career and death == 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.<ref name=whoswho/>
===Death=== Rutherford died of complications of Alzheimer's disease in Arlington, Virginia, where he spent his later years.
== References == {{Portal|Biography|Texas|United States|Virginia}} {{Reflist}} {{CongBio|R000547}}
== External links == *[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/10/AR2006111001675.html Obituary]
{{s-start}} {{s-par|us-tx-hs}} {{TXHouseSuccession box | district = 88 | hometown = Odessa | before=George W. Elliott | after=Elbert Reeves | years=1949–1953 }} {{s-par|us-tx-sen}} {{s-bef | before= Hill D. Hudson}} {{s-ttl | title= Texas State Senator<br />from District 29 (Odessa) | years= 1953–1954 }} {{s-aft | rows=1 | after=Frank Owen, III }} {{s-par|us-hs}} {{US House succession box | state=Texas | district = 16 | before=Kenneth M. Regan | after=Ed Foreman | years=1955–1963 }} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutherford, J. T.}} Category:1921 births Category:2006 deaths Category:20th-century American businesspeople Category:20th-century members of the Texas Legislature Category:20th-century United States representatives Category:American lobbyists Category:Angelo State University alumni Category:Baylor Law School alumni Category:Burials at Arlington National Cemetery Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in Virginia Category:Deaths from dementia in Virginia Category:Democratic Party members of the Texas House of Representatives Category:Democratic Party Texas state senators Category:Democratic Party United States representatives from Texas Category:Military personnel from Texas Category:People from Odessa, Texas Category:Politicians from Arlington County, Virginia Category:Politicians from Hot Springs, Arkansas Category:Sul Ross State University alumni Category:United States Marine Corps officers Category:United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II