A retired U.S. representative, J.J. “Jake” Pickle, who represented Central Texas in Washington for more than 30 years, died early Saturday at his home in Austin. He was 91.

The Democrat politician was elected in 1963 to the House seat Lyndon B. Johnson once held, rising through the ranks to become a senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. He chose not to seek re-election in 1994.

As chairman of the Social Security subcommittee, Pickle helped pass major Social Security reform legislation in 1983 that bailed the system out of financial woes by raising the age for full benefits from 65 to 67. He also worked to bring more research funds to the University of Texas.

Pickle was born in Roscoe, just west of Abilene in West Texas. In 1932, during the Depression, he became a student at the University of Texas and active in campus politics. Pickle worked, directly and indirectly, for a rising Lyndon Johnson.

He returned to Austin after World War II, during which he served as a naval officer in the Pacific, and, with other veterans, started a radio station, still known as KVET.

Pickle got active in Democratic politics as a member of the Johnson camp. The Democratic Party in Texas in the 1950s was in turmoil, with liberals pitted against establishment, business-oriented conservatives dominated by Johnson.

In 1963, shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Pickle won a special election for the 10th District to succeed Homer Thornberry, who had resigned to take a judicial post.

On Pickle’s first day in Washington as a newly elected congressman, President Johnson sent a limousine to greet him at the airport with a surprise invitation to sleep at the White House. Pickle refused the service, explaining he had already lined up accommodations with a friend.

“I was raised in West Texas. If you accept an invitation, you’re gonna do it, you know. So I did it,” Pickle said later.

During Pickle’s campaigns, even political newcomers were treated as formidable opponents, and anybody who questioned Pickle’s hard-charging style received a terse reminder that the campaign graveyard is full of overconfident politicians.

His home phone number was always listed, and he returned to Austin most weekends to answer calls. The nonstop Braniff flight from Washington to Austin was nicknamed the Pickle Express, and he was known to work the aisle like each plane was his personal political rally.