Jack Milton Fields Jr. (born February 3, 1952) is an American businessman and a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from a Houston-based district. He served eight terms from 1981 to 1997.

Early life

Fields was born in Humble, a northern suburb of Houston. He graduated from

Humble High School Humble High School (HHS) is a secondary school in the Humble Independent School District in Humble, Texas, United States. It serves grades 9 through 12 for the city of Humble, the Moonshine Hill area of Houston, and unincorporated communities no ...

in his hometown in 1970. Fields earned both Bachelor of Arts and

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degrees from Baptist-affiliated Baylor University and Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas, in 1974 and 1977, respectively. After being admitted to the Texas bar in 1977, Fields worked as a lawyer in private practice and as a vice president of a family-owned business through 1980.

Congressional career

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...

, at the age of twenty-eight, Fields was elected to the U.S. House on the coattails of President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

's electoral victory. He narrowly defeated

8th District 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of the ...

incumbent

Bob Eckhardt Robert Christian Eckhardt (July 16, 1913 – November 13, 2001) was a Democratic United States Representative representing the 8th District of Texas from 1967 to 1981. Early life and family Eckhardt was born in Austin, Texas on July 16, 1913. ...

, a seven-term

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

, by only 4,900 votes to become the first Republican to represent what is now the 8th in 83 years. After the 1980 census, most of the 8th's more Democratic areas were cut out, and Fields was reelected seven more times without serious difficulty. When the Republican Party assumed majority control of the House of Representatives in the

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

elections, Fields was elected chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance of the House Committee on Commerce. In that role, he was one of the principal authors of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

1993 special Senate election

In 1993, Fields joined a field of 24 candidates in a special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by

Lloyd Bentsen Lloyd Millard Bentsen Jr. (February 11, 1921 – May 23, 2006) was an American politician who was a four-term United States Senator (1971–1993) from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for vice president in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ti ...

, when Bentsen was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton as the secretary of the treasury. However, Fields failed to win enough votes to advance to a

runoff election The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resul ...

Post-congressional career

Fields did not run for reelection to the

106th Congress The 106th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 19 ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

. Instead, he started two companies, the 21st Century Group, Inc., a government relations firm based in Washington, D.C., and Texana Global, Inc., an international trade corporation headquartered in Texas. He has served on various corporate and charitable boards. In 2004, the U.S. Post Office in Kingwood was renamed the "Congressman Jack Fields Post Office" in Fields' honor. He joined

Insperity Insperity, Inc., previously known as Administaff, Inc., is a professional employer organization headquartered in Kingwood, an area of Houston, Texas, USA. Insperity provides human resources and administrative services to small and medium-sized ...

as a director in January 1997. His total compensation for this role in 2009 was $120,746. Fields is married to Lynn Fields and has two daughters, Jordan and Lexi, and a stepson, Josh Hughes.

References

External links

*
Congressional discussion of bill to name post office after Fields
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fields, Jack 1952 births Living people People from Houston People from Humble, Texas American lawyers American businesspeople Baylor University alumni Baylor Law School alumni Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas People from Ennis, Texas Members of Congress who became lobbyists