In 1972, after returning to Oklahoma, Jones ran for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district. He won and was re-elected six times. During his tenure in Congress, which lasted until 1987, Jones served four years as the Chairman of the House Budget Committee.
After Johnson left office, Jones returned to Oklahoma and resumed his law practice in Tulsa. In 1970, he ran against 10-term incumbent Republican Page Belcher in Oklahoma's 1st congressional district. He gave Belcher only his second credible reelection contest ever, holding him to 55 percent of the vote—a surprisingly close margin, considering that Belcher was ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee.
Jones was priming for a rematch in 1972, but Belcher didn't have the stomach for another bruising contest and pulled out of the race in June. The Republicans recruited Tulsa Mayor Jim Hewgley as a replacement. However, Jones won the November election by a fairly convincing 11-point margin—a surprising result, considering that Richard Nixon easily carried the 1st in the presidential election (Nixon won Tulsa County with a staggering 78 percent of the vote). Jones is the first and only Democrat to have represented Tulsa in Congress since Dixie Gilmer left office in 1951; he was re-elected six times, serving until January 1987.
As a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Jones secured House backing for a conservative tax cut in 1978.[1] In 1979, he joined the House Budget Committee.[1] Jones also was able to get Democrats to add more fiscal conservatives to the Budget Committee.[1]
Jones decided to give up his House seat in 1986 to run against Republican incumbent Senator Don Nickles, even though he'd only narrowly defeated future governorFrank Keating two years earlier for reelection to his House seat. He lost to Nickles by 10 points.
^"Think tank plans study of how US treats detainees". Wall Street Journal. 2010-12-17. Archived from the original on 2010-12-19. Former FBI Director William Sessions, former Arkansas U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a retired Army general and a retired appeals court judge in Washington are among 11 people selected for a task force that will meet for the first time in early January, said Virginia Sloan, a lawyer and president of The Constitution Project.