for his personal frugality, Mahon often clashed with presidents of both parties who he determined wanted to spend more money than the treasury could afford. Early in his Congressional tenure, Mahon served on the committee that developed the Manhattan Project. In 1947-8, he served on the Herter Committee. He was one of the majority of the Texan delegation to decline to sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. However, Mahon voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. On three occasions, 1962, 1964, and 1976, Mahon faced Republican opponents Dennis Taylor, Joe B. Phillips (1925-2012), a Realtor from Lubbock and later the administrator of the Smithlawn Church of Christ Maternity Home and Adoption Agency, and then Jim Reese, a former mayor of Odessa, respectively. Mahon topped Taylor, 46,925 (67.1 percent) to 23,022 (32.9 percent) in the same election in which the Republican Ed Foreman of Odessa unseated the Democrat J.T. Rutherford in an adjacent West Texas congressional district. Mahon prevailed in 1964, 87,555 (77.6 percent) to Phillips's 25,243 (22.4 percent). In his last race, Mahon defeated Reese, 87,908 (54.6 percent) to 72,991 (45.4 percent), with victory secured by his large margin in Lubbock County. Mahon decided not to run again for the U.S. House in 1978, when Reese lost the Republican runoff primary for the seat to George W. Bush, who was then defeated in the general election by Democrat Kent Hance, who subsequently switched parties. After his years in the House, Mahon stayed in Washington to work with the Smithsonian Institution, of which he was a regent from 1964 to 1978. Mahon died in San Angelo of complications from knee surgery. He is interred at the Loraine City Cemetery in Loraine in Mitchell County alongside Mrs. Mahon, who died in 1987. References External links Mahon papers, 1887-1986 and undated, in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University 1900 births 1985 deaths Hardin–Simmons University alumni University of Texas School of Law alumni County district attorneys in Texas People from Lubbock, Texas People from Claiborne Parish, Louisiana People from Colorado City, Texas Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American politicians People from Loraine,