Question: Who was the last person to represent the entire state of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives?
Answer: Joe Pool. Born in Fort Worth in 1911, he served in the Army Air Corps in World War II after attending the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University. In 1952, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, where he pushed for legislation to create the Trinity River Authority with the goal of building a shipping canal from Dallas-Fort Worth to Galveston Bay.
Following the 1960 Congressional reapportionment, Texas received one additional U.S. House seat, and the legislature created an at-large district for the entire state. Pool was elected to this seat in 1962 and 1964, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts should be equally apportioned, thereby banning at-large districts in states with more than one seat in the U.S. House. Pool was reelected in 1966 as the representative for western Dallas County.
