and 1960, but voted in favor of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, he helped to write the 1964 and 1965 bills. On November 22, 1963, Brooks was in President John F. Kennedy's Dallas, Texas motorcade at the time Kennedy was assassinated. Hours later, he was present on Air Force One when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. The 2nd was redistricted as the 9th district in 1966, after the Supreme Court ruled in Wesberry v. Sanders that congressional district populations had to be equal or close to equal in population. 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. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Brooks participated in the 1973–74 impeachment process against Richard Nixon. In mid-July 1974 he drafted and distributed to all members of the committee a strongly-worded set of articles of impeachment. Uncompromising though they were, the Brooks proposals provided others on the committee with an opportunity to meld their thoughts together and to further develop, thus serving as the foundation for the articles of impeachment that the committee subsequently adopted. Because of the part he played in the president's downfall, Nixon later called Brooks his "executioner". Brooks was one of eight Democrats to vote for all five articles of impeachment brought before the Judiciary Committee. The others were Robert Kastenmeier, Don Edwards, John Conyers, Barbara Jordan, Charles Rangel, Elizabeth Holtzman and Edward Mezvinsky. Brooks was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Government Operations from 1975 through 1988, and of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary from 1989 until 1995. He also served on the Select Committee on Congressional Operations, the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations, and the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security. In 1979, he became the senior member of the Texas congressional delegation, a position which he maintained for fifteen years. As the leader of the Government Operations Committee, Brooks oversaw legislation affecting budget and accounting matters, and the establishment of departments and agencies. He also helped pass the Inspector General Act of