Hartley was sworn in at age twenty-seven as the youngest member of the
71st United States Congress on March 4, 1929. He was one of a relatively small number of Republicans to hold their seats throughout the
Great Depression and
World War II. In the 1932 election, he defeated William W. Harrison for the House seat in New Jersey's 10th congressional district. and in the 1934 he beat William Herda Smith. Hartley had another close race in 1936, in which he beat out Democratic challenger Lindsay H. Rudd in a close 50.2%-49.6% race. Hartley soundly defeated Rudd again in 1938, and won re-election in 1940 against William W. Holmwood, in 1942 against Frederic Bigelow, in 1944 against Luke A. Kiernan Jr., and in 1946 against his future successor
Peter W. Rodino Jr. Taft–Hartley Hartley found the level of postwar labor unrest to be very disturbing, and felt that it threatened both
economic and political stability. In 1946, the Republicans returned their first majority in both houses of
Congress since the 1928 election in which Hartley was first elected. With his party in the majority, Hartley served as the chairman of the
Committee on Education and Labor in the
80th United States Congress. the next year he introduced legislation to curb what he felt were the worst of labor's excesses. The resultant
Taft–Hartley Act was a major revision of the 1935 Wagner Act (officially known as the
National Labor Relations Act) and represented the first major revision of a
New Deal act passed by the post-war Congress. The act placed limits on labor tactics such as the
secondary boycott,). This provision, known as Section 14(b), was one of the act's most controversial.
President Harry S. Truman vetoed the act, but Congress overrode the veto on June 23, 1947, with 20 of the 45 Democratic senators and 107 of the 188 Democratic representatives joining with Republicans to override the veto. It is in the platform of all major U.S.
labor unions to call for the repeal of the act, especially Section 14 (b), and at times this has been reflected in the platform of the
Democratic Party. However, the only time this has ever seemed likely was when the Democrats had a huge majority in both houses of Congress following the Republican electoral disaster of 1964. Even then, the repeal bill passed 221–203 in the House, but the two-thirds majority it needed in the Senate was never attained, partly because of long
filibustering by
Republicans such as
Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. Hartley did not seek any further election to Congress following the term in which the act which bears his name was passed, and his service concluded on January 3, 1949. ==Later life==