Name Joe Pool | Role U.S. representative | |
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Died July 14, 1968, Houston, Texas, United States | ||
Joe Richard Pool (February 18, 1911 – July 14, 1968) was a U.S. Representative from Texas.
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History
Pool was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1911. He graduated from Oak Cliff High School (now W. H. Adamson High School) in the Dallas Independent School District and attended the University of Texas from 1929 to 1933. In 1937, he graduated from Southern Methodist University School of Law, was admitted to the Texas bar, and commenced the practice of law in Dallas, Texas.
During World War II, he served with the United States Army from 1943 to 1945 as a special investigator in the Intelligence section of the Army Air Corps. After the war, he resumed the practice of law.
He entered politics as a Democrat, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1952. He was re-elected in 1954 and 1956, serving from 1953 to 1958. He was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Representative from the 5th District of Texas in 1958, losing in the primary to Barefoot Sanders. He ran again in 1960, winning the primary, but lost in the general election to Republican incumbent Bruce Alger.
In the 1960 Congressional reapportionment, Texas received an additional U.S. House seat, but the districts were not redrawn and an at-large seat was created. Pool won the Democratic nomination for this seat and was elected to the Eighty-eighth Congress. He was re-elected to the Eighty-ninth Congress in 1964.
However, in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), the Supreme Court banned at-large Congressional districts. Texas redrew its districts, and Pool opted to run for the 3rd District north of Dallas. He was re-elected from this district to the Ninetieth Congress in 1966.
Pool served in Congress from January 3, 1963 until his death from a heart attack in Houston, Texas on July 14, 1968.
He was interred in Laurel Land Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas.