Archer, Bill (1928-…), a Texas Republican, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 2001. From 1995 to 2001, he was chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which oversees matters of taxation and government spending.
William Reynolds Archer, Jr., was born on March 2, 1928, in Houston. He attended Rice University in 1945 and 1946. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Texas in 1949 and a law degree from the university’s School of Law in 1951.
Archer served in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to 1953, during the Korean War. From 1953 to 1961, he was president of Uncle Johnny Mills, Inc., a livestock feed company. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1966 and reelected in 1968. Archer was a conservative Democrat when he became a member of the Texas House, but he switched to the Republican Party in 1967. In 1970, Archer won election to his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He took office in 1971. In 1999, during his fifteenth term, he announced that he would retire when the term ended in 2001.
