BIOGRAPHY/POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Homer Ross Tomlin
Homer Thornberry: Congressman, Judge, and Advocate for Equal Rights
TCU Press
Hardcover (ebook also available), 978-0-87565-637-0, 224 pages
August 12, 2016
Reviewed by Si Dunn
It’s easy, these days, to be cynical about politicians and about a biography written by the grandson of a Texas politician who entered public service at the same time as Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Push those thoughts aside when considering Homer Thornberry: Congressman, Judge, and Advocate for Equal Rights. This book from TCU Press is well written, solidly researched, and an important addition to twentieth-century Texas and American political history.
Homer Ross Tomlin tracks the career of a legislator and judge known for honesty and fairness, a desire to expand and protect civil rights, and a willingness to stay in touch with constituents. “It makes you keep your feet on the ground,” Thornberry liked to say. “A fundamental of good public service is to remember who you’re working for.”
Born in Austin to deaf parents in 1909, Homer Thornberry knew only sign language until age three. When he was nine, his father died of Spanish flu. Afterward, his mother kept herself and her son afloat by teaching at the Texas School for the Deaf. In 1920, she went to a polling station and took Homer with her. It was, Tomlin notes, “the first time women could legally vote. The experience left a lasting impression” on the eleven-year-old. Three years later, he became a page in the Texas Legislature.
Thornberry’s deeper involvement in politics began in 1930, while studying business administration at the University of Texas and working part-time as a 21-year-old Travis County deputy sheriff. Tomlin writes: “He was enthralled by the daily activities at the county courthouse, where he got to witness the legal system in action. Because the county sheriff’s position was subject to popular vote every two years, office employees were obligated to drum up voter support for the incumbent. These grassroots activities marked the first time that politics ‘got in my blood,’ Thornberry later said.”
Thornberry’s political career moved swiftly once he earned a law degree and worked as a private attorney. He was elected to the Texas legislature, became Travis County district attorney, won election to the Austin city council, and served during World War II as a Navy legal officer. In 1948, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives’ 10th Congressional District seat, replacing Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was moving up to the Senate.
Friendship with LBJ and another famous Texan, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, benefitted Thornberry’s rise, the book makes clear. President John F. Kennedy appointed Thornberry a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. In 1965, LBJ named him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where he was involved in numerous civil rights cases. LBJ also tried but failed to get Thornberry onto the U.S. Supreme Court.
As legislator and judge, Homer Thornberry played historically significant roles in such matters as passing JFK’s New Frontier agenda, overturning Texas’s poll tax on state elections, and expanding public school desegregation.
This engaging book shows how he helped make these major milestones happen.
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