{"id":362320,"date":"2026-07-06T03:47:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T03:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362320\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T03:47:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T03:47:22","slug":"former-u-s-rep-bill-archer-dies-at-98","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362320\/","title":{"rendered":"Former U.S. Rep. Bill Archer dies at 98"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/about\/ethics\/#ai-policy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI policy<\/a>, and give us <a href=\"https:\/\/airtable.com\/appFeleeKVUN0Iytx\/pagPG40gbkU0EfjIr\/form\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Archer, who represented west Houston for three decades in Congress, died on Saturday in Virginia. He was 98. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His death was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.archercenter.org\/in-memoriam.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> Sunday by the Archer Center, which he co-established after he retired from Congress.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Best known for his time in federal politics, Archer first served <a href=\"https:\/\/lrl.texas.gov\/legeleaders\/members\/memberDisplay.cfm?memberID=759&amp;searchparams=chamber=H~city=~countyID=0~RcountyID=~district=~first=~gender=~last=archer~leaderNote=~leg=60~party=~roleDesc=~Committee=\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">two terms<\/a> in the Texas House. He started as a Democrat in 1967, but switched parties two years later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Archer was then elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970 to serve Texas\u2019 7th Congressional District, succeeding George H. W. Bush. During his long tenure, he rose to chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He spearheaded major federal tax legislation, including reducing the estate tax and creating the $500-per-child tax credit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2001, he established the Archer Center in partnership with the University of Texas System. More than 2,200 students have participated in its fellowship program, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.archercenter.org\/in-memoriam.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to the center<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe University of Texas System is fortunate, proud, and honored to have Congressman Archer\u2019s name permanently associated with our work and our mission,\u201d said Chancellor John M. Zerwas in a statement shared by the Archer Center. \u201cThrough his extraordinary legacy of leadership and public service, thousands of Archer Fellows have been exposed to the highest ideals of civic engagement and inspired to carry those values forward in their own lives and careers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">William \u201cReyn\u201d Archer III, in a statement, said his father felt that his biggest achievement was in \u201chelping individual people.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe cared deeply for the power of one person achieving their best,\u201d his eldest son said. \u201cThrough the Archer Center, he leaves a lasting legacy of that desire for Texas and Texans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: University of Texas System has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/support-us\/corporate-sponsors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56,2051,27,2850,29,28,2691,6748],"class_list":["post-362320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-houston","tag-taxes","tag-texas","tag-texas-congressional-delegation","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-university-of-texas-system","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}