Alphonzo E. Bell, Jr.

Alphonzo " Al " Bell Jr. ( born September 19, 1914 in Los Angeles, California, † April 25, 2004 in Santa Monica, California ) was an American politician. Between 1961 and 1977 he represented the state of California in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Alphonzo Bell came from a wealthy Californian family who had made ​​their fortunes with ranch work, and in the oil business. His father, Alphonzo Bell (1875-1947) was not only successful as an entrepreneur, but also as an athlete: At the Olympic Games in 1904 in St. Louis, he won the silver in the tennis doubles and bronze in singles. The younger Bell attended until 1938, the Occidental College in Los Angeles. During the Second World War he served between 1942 and 1945 in the U.S. Army. In the following years he worked among other things as a rancher and in the real estate industry. At the same time he proposed as a member of the Republican Party launched a political career. In the years 1956-1959 he was its chairman in California. At the same time, he also belonged to the Republican National Committee.

In the congressional elections of 1960, Bell was in the 16th electoral district of California in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Donald L. Jackson on January 3, 1961. After seven elections he could pass in Congress until January 3, 1977 eight legislatures. Since 1963 he represented there the 28th and the 27th District from 1975 his state. Bell was at times a member of the Committee on Science and Space and the Committee on Education and Labor. He supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all other laws in this direction. In his time as a congressman fell among other things, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal and the final phase of the civil rights movement.

1976 renounced Bell on another candidacy. Instead, he sought unsuccessfully to his party's nomination for election to the U.S. Senate. He died on April 25, 2004 in Santa Monica.