James Anthony Burke (March 30, 1910 - October 13, 1983) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1959 to 1979. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated in the Boston public schools and Lincoln Preparatory School and attended Suffolk University. Burke served as the registrar of vital statistics for the city of Boston and during the Second World War was special agent in the Counter-intelligence, attached to the Seventy-seventh Infantry Division in the South Pacific. He was a member of the Massachusetts General Court for ten years and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for four years, serving as assistant majority leader. He then became vice chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic State committee for four years and was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-sixth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1959 - January 3, 1979). Burke was not a candidate for reelection in 1978 to the Ninety-sixth Congress.
Burke was a resident of Milton, Massachusetts until his death in Boston, Massachusetts on October 13, 1983 and his interment was at Milton Cemetery in Milton, Massachusetts.
