sentences:  Burnett was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-sixth and to the ten succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1899, until his death.He served as chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization (Sixty-second through Sixty-fifth Congresses).On April 5, 1917, John Lawson Burnett was one of the 50 representatives who voted against declaring war on Germany (World War I).