Jamie Lloyd Whitten (April 18, 1910 – September 9, 1995) was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who represented his native state of Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives from 1941 to 1995. He was at the time of his departure the longest-serving U.S. Representative ever. From 1979 to 1995, he was Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the longest-serving member of Congress ever from Mississippi. He was a New Deal liberal on economic matters, and took a leading role in Congress in forming national policy and spending regarding agriculture. Whitten was the last remaining member of Congress to have served during the FDR administration.

Jamie Whitten was born in Cascilla, Mississippi. He attended local public schools and the University of Mississippi where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He worked as a school teacher and principal and was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served in 1931 and 1932. He was admitted to the bar in 1932, and from 1933 to 1941, he was District Attorney of Mississippi's 17th District, which included his home county of Tallahatchie.

In 1941, Whitten was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives in a special election to represent the state's 2nd District, in the northern part of the state. The seat had become vacant as a result of incumbent Congressman Wall Doxey's election to the United States Senate. He was elected to a full term in 1942 and was re-elected 25 more times.

Whitten's district was renumbered as the 1st District after the 1970 Census.

Whitten had the support of the Democratic caucus and served as chair of the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture (1949-1953 and 1954-1978). He was chair of the entire committee 1979-1992. Throughout that period he had a decisive voice on agricultural spending and to a large extent on policies.

In 1977, his subcommittee lost control of environmental issues. He lost his influence after suffering a debilitating stroke in February 1992. As a champion for American farmers, he fought against the FDA's early 1970s recommendation of restricting the use of antibiotics in livestock. He required that scientists prove the danger of antibiotic use.

Whitten was an ardent New Dealer who supported most liberal spending issues. He supported distribution of free food to the poor from surplus commodity stocks, school lunch programs and food stamps in coalition with urban Democrats. In the 1980s, he clashed with the conservative Reagan administration on policy matters. He voted against Reagan's economic plans, tax cuts, increased defense spending, balanced budget initiative, tort reform, welfare reform, abortion restrictions, missile defense system, and the Persian Gulf War. Although Whitten represented a district that grew increasingly suburban and Republican-leaning from the 1970s onward, his opposition to Reagan's program did not affect him at the ballot box. Indeed, his seniority and popularity resulted in his facing only token, or "sacrificial lamb", opponents on the occasions he faced any opposition at all, even in years when Republican presidential candidates carried the district by landslide margins. Nonetheless, it was assumed that he would be succeeded by a Republican when he retired.

Whitten was originally a segregationist, as were many of his colleagues from Mississippi and the rest of the South. He signed the Southern Manifesto condemning the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ordered the desegregation of public schools. Along with virtually the entire Mississippi congressional delegation, he voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, the Civil Rights Acts of 1960, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1968 as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Whitten later apologized for these votes, calling them a "mistake" caused by severe misjudgment.^{[citation needed]} He voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1991.