Rep. Ralph Hall represents the Fourth Congressional District of Texas, which straddles the Oklahoma and Arkansas borders northeast of Dallas. In more than six decades of public service, he also has been a county judge, a Texas state senator and a Navy pilot during World War II, when he served on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. In 2004, Mr. Hall switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party, explaining, ''I'm not comfortable in the caucus with them running down a president [George W. Bush] that I've known since he was 11." He currently is chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
