Hutto was elected as a
Democrat to the
Florida House of Representatives in 1972 and was reelected in 1974 and 1976. He was elected in 1978 to the
96th and to the seven succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1979, to January 3, 1995. He decided not to run as a candidate in
1994 for reelection to the
104th Congress. Hutto was one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. This was not surprising given the nature of his district. It moved away from its "
Solid South" roots somewhat sooner than the rest of Florida; its white voters had begun splitting their tickets as early as the 1950s. However, Hutto usually skated to reelection for most of his tenure, with Republicans usually fielding nominal challengers the few times they fielded candidates at all. From 1978 to 1988, Hutto never dropped below 61 percent of the vote, easily winning reelection even in years when Republican presidential candidates carried the 1st in landslides. In 1984, for instance, he was completely unopposed for reelection even as
Ronald Reagan carried the district with over 70 percent of the vote. In 1988, as
George H. W. Bush carried the 1st by a similar margin to the one Reagan scored four years earlier, Hutto was reelected with 66 percent of the vote. He voted against the
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986. In 1990, Republican challenger Terry Ketchel held Hutto to 52 percent of the vote in the district's first competitive contest in recent memory. Hutto defeated Ketchel in a rematch in 1992, but was once again held to only 52 percent of the vote. He opted not to run for reelection in 1994, and was succeeded by Republican
Joe Scarborough. Proving just how Republican this district is, Hutto was the last Democrat to win over 40 percent of the district's vote, or win a county in the district, until Gay Valimont in the
2025 special election. Hutto joined the bipartisan ReFormers Caucus in 2017. ==Death==