Education
Born in 1927 in Los Angeles, California, Rousselot attended the public schools of San Marino and South Pasadena.
Born in 1927 in Los Angeles, California, Rousselot attended the public schools of San Marino and South Pasadena.
Although the territory he represented was generally the same, in eastern Los Angeles County, the district was renumbered several times during his congressional career)
He received a Bachelor of Arts from Principia College, Elsah, Illinois, in 1949, and went to work as an insurance agent. During the 1950s he also was an author and public relations consultant. From 1954 to 1955, Rousselot served as assistant to the public relations director of Pacific Finance Corporation, Los Angeles, California.
He served as deputy to the chairman of the California Board of Equalization in 1956, and was director of public information for the Federal Housing Administration in Washington, District of Columbia, from 1958 to 1960.
Rousselot resigned his position at the Federal Housing Administration to return to southern California to run for Congress. Rousselot was elected as a Republican to the Eighty-seventh Congress (January 3, 1961 – January 3, 1963) from California"s 25th congressional district, defeating Democratic incumbent George A. Kasem.
He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Eighty-eighth Congress in 1962, losing to Democrat Ronald B. Cameron. During the next few years, Rousselot worked as a management consultant and also served as Western regional director of the ultraconservative John Birch Society.
His longtime association with this group was a continuing source of controversy throughout his career in elective office.
Rousselot was elected to the Ninety-first Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of United States Representative Glenard P. Lipscomb in California"s 24th congressional district, and reelected to the six succeeding Congresses (June 30, 1970 – January 3, 1983). In the Republican primary for the 1970 special election, he narrowly edged out former congressman Patrick Hillings and former football star and doctor Bill McColl. In the special general election he handily defeated Democrat Myrlie Evers, the widow of assassinated civil rights activist Medger Evers.
Rousselot served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan in 1983, and as president of the National Council of Savings Institutions, a lobbying group, from 1985 to 1988.
Rousselot died of heart failure in Irvine, California, in 2003.
His first notable political activity had been as a delegate to the 1956 Republican National Convention, and he had served as a member of the executive committee of the California Republican State Central Committee in 1956-1957.