John Emmett Lyle Jr. (September 4, 1910 – November 11, 2003) was a U.S. Representative from Texas.

Early life

A third generation Texan born in Boyd, Texas, Lyle graduated from Wichita Falls High School, Wichita Falls, Texas. He attended the Junior College at Wichita Falls, the University of Texas (working as a night watchman in the Capitol basement), and the Houston Law School at night. He was admitted to the bar in 1934, and entered private practice in Corpus Christi.

Political career

Lyle served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1941 to 1944. He was in the United States Army from 1942 to 1944; when he won the Democratic primary for renomination in 1942, he was an active duty Captain of artillery in Italy. He was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth and to the four succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1945 – January 3, 1955), enjoying strong support from the Parr family of Duval County. He was not a candidate for renomination to Congress in 1954. He was a staunch anti-communist and was the chief witness against the two times Chairman of the Federal Power Commission, Leland Olds, when Olds was blocked by the Senate from reappointment largely on the grounds that Olds had previously been close to the Communist Party.

Later Life

Lyle was a director of Falcon Seaboard and of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas. He was appointed to the Federal Council on Aging in 1994. He died on November 11, 2003, in Houston and was interred in Texas State Cemetery, Austin, Texas.

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