Talk:Jack Brooks (American politician)

Temporarilly removed article from Category:American lawyers
I temporarilly removed this article from Category:American lawyers because it never mentions the subject actually practicing law. It only discusses his other political and business activities. If the article is later expanded to mention him specifically practicing law at some point, then go ahead and place it in the appropriate subcategory of Category:American lawyers by state.Dugwiki 19:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Studied law but apparently never practiced. -The Gnome (talk) 10:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Rep. Brooks in Image:Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath of office, November 1963.jpg
According to the caption of this image, Jack Brooks is the man on the right of the picture. Should we include this image in this article? --DangApricot 21:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That is him. Yes, we should keep it in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.82.9.80 (talk) 04:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy Theory
The article talks of FEMA suspending the constitution but is poorly sourced. This seems like a conspiracy theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.140.59.100 (talk) 07:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure what was in the article, but in the Iran-Contra hearings, Brooks was famous for wanting a public discussion of a purported plan to suspend the constitution, but the committee chairman insisted on adjourning to closed session... AnonMoos (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Working on article
FYI: I am working on the article after my mentor brought to my attention that a lot of it is copied or very tightly worded paraphrasing of existing biographies on Brooks on the Lamar University and University of Texas (Austin) websites. Lightbreather (talk) 21:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

UPDATE: Taking a little break while I research info for a partially related article. Expect that will bring me back to add some details to the Congressional career info. I have done quite a few edits the last 2 or 3 days, and if it helps to put those in perspective, here is the DIFF between the article before I started and now. I re-paraphrased or re-wrote some of the existing, added some new info, added where citations are needed, and doubled the sources from six to 12. I also moved some info, added some new sections, and generally reorganized. Any questions, AGF and please ask me. Lightbreather (talk) 20:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Removing impeachment gavel statement
Although the following is interesting:

I have removed it from the article for lack of evidence. If someone finds a citation or two, cool, but in the meantime it's unsourced, urban legend. Lightbreather (talk) 18:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The gavel used by Brooks during the Judiciary Committee's 1974 impeachment hearings was made from wood taken from President Nixon's 1973 inauguration stand.

External links modified
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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:21, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * JackBrooksCP.png

Correction on Brooks Act section
The following text here is for this discussion:

"One of Brooks's signature bills required competitive bidding for federal computing contracts. Initially conceived in the mid-1960s and enacted into law in 1972, the Brooks Act was the primary rule for all federal computer acquisitions for three decades, and is often cited as being a catalyst for technological advances."

https://www.nextgov.com/people/2012/12/the-brooks-legacy-remembering-the-man-who-changed-federal-it/205578/

The provided source for the last part about the Brooks Act being a catalyst for technological advances is from a writer who is involved in the business of federal contracting with Guerra, Kiviat, Flyzik and Associates of Oak Hill, Va. https://washingtontechnology.com/2003/06/gsas-mcdonough-joins-guerra/354254/

This inserts bias from the author of the article where the positive outlook of the Brooks Act would provide substantial increase in federal contracting with IT companies. The later evolution of the Brooks Act (Clinger-Cohen Act) https://dodcio.defense.gov/portals/0/documents/ciodesrefvolone.pdf (Competition in Contracting Act) https://www.fai.gov/sites/default/files/2016-12-22-Federal-Rulemaking-Competition-in-Contracting-Act-of-1984.pdf with IT companies would come at a cost where IT in government would suffer delays, waste, abuse, and fraud disguised as legally normalized steps for doing federal IT contracting (personal anecdotes). Palantir Inc. being an example where closed source custom IT solutions are provided on a time-based contract requiring massive payments and if not paid, then the solution is pulled and/or no longer supported. Sourcing this sadly would require some journalistic abilities that I do not have which is why I am starting the conversation here instead of editing. I think the expansion on the Brooks Act article could come into play as well on the impacts of the Brooks Act historically being provided now that we have the benefit of hindsight.

This is also only in the scope of IT companies in the realm of federal contracting. If you were to view the primary audience for the Brooks Act (engineering and architecture), you will see that these areas have been heavily and negatively impacted over time. The Brooks Act has been seen by many in the field as anti-competitive due to QBS which has requirements for historical data with a firm resulting in new firms having extreme difficulties being able to compete with already existing firms. This is much less in my field of knowledge though and would require much more research, but the results are out there for us to observe (mostly any federally contracted engineering and/or architectural project takes much too long and requires way too much money due to massive amounts of mistakes that occur resulting in less-than-average completion). We also see a complete lack in technological progression for federal public works (local and state have been impacted as well due to piggy-backing on the Brooks Act way of things) in these fields due to these issues as well. POCMON (talk) 19:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC)