Hill was elected on August 14, 1923, as U.S. representative from
Alabama's 2nd congressional district to fill the vacancy created by the death of John R. Tyson. He served as Chairman of the
House Committee on Military Affairs. On January 10, 1938, Hill was appointed to the
U.S. Senate as a Democrat to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator
Dixie Bibb Graves for the term ending January 3, 1939; he was subsequently elected on April 26, 1938, to fill the remaining months of the term. During
World War II, Hill supported the interventionist side of America's foreign policy arguments and took an outspokenly "pro-British" stance, both speaking and voting in favor of the
Lend-Lease program. On October 23, 1941, he voted in favor of supplemental lend-lease funding to help the
British Army. On November 7, 1941, he voted in favor of legislation to amend several sections of the neutrality acts which was intended to make it easier for the
United States to provide direct military aid to the
United Kingdom during
World War II. The British privately described him as "reliably pro-British." He was elected to a full term in November 1938 and re-elected in 1944, 1950, 1956, and
1962. He did not seek re-election in 1968 and retired in January 1969. A moderate-to-liberal
populist Democrat, Hill distinguished himself in a number of fields, but was best known for the Hospital and Health Center Construction Act of 1946, better known as the
Hill-Burton Act. He also sponsored the Hill-Harris Act of 1963, providing for assistance in constructing facilities for the
intellectually disabled and mentally ill. Additionally, he was recognized as the most instrumental man in Congress in gaining greatly increased support for medical research at the nation's medical schools and other research institution. He sponsored other important legislation, including the Rural Telephone Act, the Rural Housing Act, the Vocational Education Act, and the
National Defense Education Act of 1958. "Hill also used his position and his persistence in improving conditions in rural areas to allot federal funds for rural libraries. For a decade, he worked to provide library service to those with no or inadequate facilities" and was instrumental in passing the
Library Services Act which ensured federal funding to support development of libraries in rural areas and dramatically changed the landscape of libraries in terms of viability, sustainability, and quality. In 1954, Hill signed "
The Southern Manifesto" condemning the Supreme Court's 9–0 decision in
Brown vs Board of Education ordering school desegregation, but remained a close friend of Supreme Court Justice and fellow Alabamian
Hugo Black who voted for the decision. Hill voted against the
Civil Rights Acts of 1957, the
Civil Rights Acts of 1960, the
Civil Rights Acts of 1964, and the
Civil Rights Acts of 1968, as well as the
24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1956 he was honored by the
American Library Association for his support of the Library Services Act. However, Hill was as much a national figure as a representative of Alabama and the South. During his long years in the Congress, he would, from time to time, break with his southern colleagues to follow his own conscience. For example, in opposition to most southerners in the Congress, he favored federal control of offshore oil, with revenue to be earmarked for education. Hill was the Senate Majority Whip from 1941 to 1947. He was Chairman of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, which handled important legislation on veterans education, health, hospitals, libraries, and labor-management relations. He was a ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and a member of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. In the 1950s, Hill criticized
US President Dwight Eisenhower's attempts to reduce hospital funding that had been granted under the Hill-Burton Act. Hill strongly supported rural electrification and federally subsidized freight rates. On September 4, 1964, President
Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Nurse Training Act of 1964, naming Hill as one of the Members of Congress who pioneered the legislation.
The Wherry-Hill Investigation The
Wherry–Hill investigation was a 1950 Senate inquiry led by
Kenneth S. Wherry and
J. Lister Hill into the alleged employment of homosexuals in the federal government. Driven by Cold War fears that gay employees were security risks vulnerable to blackmail, the senators heard testimony from Lt. Roy Blick of the Metropolitan D.C Police Vice squad who said it was his "own judgement" that there were as many as 3,500 homosexuals employed in Government agencies. Although much of the testimony relied on speculative claims, the investigation led to tighter personnel reporting procedures and helped trigger broader congressional action. It became an early catalyst for what is now known as the
Lavender Scare, during which thousands of LGBTQ federal employees were investigated, forced to resign, or dismissed. There is little evidence of this committee in records aside from press reports and two official published reports. The Wherry–Hill inquiry contributed to the political pressure that led
Dwight D. Eisenhower to issue
Executive Order 10450 in 1953. That order expanded federal security requirements and explicitly listed “sexual perversion” as grounds for dismissal—language widely used at the time to target gay men and lesbians. EO 10450 formalized and intensified the exclusionary policies that had gained momentum during the early Cold War investigations, including those initiated by Wherry and Hill. Executive Order 10450 remained in place for decades and was not formally rescinded in a single sweeping action. However, its discriminatory provisions were effectively dismantled in the 1970s when the U.S. Civil Service Commission ended a ban on gay and lesbian individuals in the
federal civil service. In 1995,
Bill Clinton issued
Executive Order 12968, which removed sexual orientation as a basis for denying or revoking a federal security clearance. In 1998, Clinton strengthened protections further through
Executive Order 13087, which explicitly prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in federal civilian employment. While EO 10450 technically remained on the books, its anti-gay enforcement structure was rendered legally obsolete beginning in 1995. Hill's role in the investigation is not typically central to assessments of his career, nor is he remembered as a defining architect of federal anti-LGBTQ policy. Nevertheless, his participation in the 1950 inquiry places him within the early congressional actions that contributed to the institutionalization of discrimination against LGBTQ+ federal employees during the Cold War era and should be noted along with his stance against integration and voting rights over the next 10 years.
1962 campaign In 1962, Hill sought his last term in office but faced an unusually strong
Republican opponent in
James D. Martin, a petroleum products distributor from
Gadsden. Like Hill, Martin supported the
Tennessee Valley Authority, a
New Deal project begun in 1933. Martin noted that the original sponsor of the interstate development agency was a Republican US Senator,
George W. Norris of
Nebraska. During the campaign, Martin proposed that the TVA headquarters be relocated from
Knoxville,
Tennessee, to its original point of development,
Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Hill had worked to fund other public works projects too, including the deepening of the Mobile Ship Channel, the building of the Gainesville Lock and Dam in
Sumter County, and the
Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, an ultimately successful strategy to link the
Tennessee River with the
Gulf of Mexico. In the campaign against Martin, Hill said, "If Alabama is to continue the progress and development she has achieved, she cannot do so by deserting the great Democratic Party." Hill pledged to seek renewed funding for the
Redstone Arsenal and
Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama, and accused former President Eisenhower of having neglected the space program while the former
Soviet Union was placing
Sputnik into the atmosphere. Strongly endorsed by
organized labor, Hill accused the Republicans of exploiting the South to enrich the North and the East and attacked the legacy of former President
Herbert Hoover and the earlier "evils" of Reconstruction. Hill predicted that Alabama voters would bury the Republicans "under an avalanche." The 1962 midterm elections were overshadowed by the
Cuban Missile Crisis. Martin joined Hill in endorsing the
quarantine of
Cuba but insisted that the problem was an outgrowth of the failed
Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Hill said that Soviet
premier Nikita S. Khrushchev had "chickened out" because "the one thing the communists respect is strength."
The New York Times speculated that the blockade ordered by President
John F. Kennedy may have saved Hill from defeat. Despite the postwar bipartisan consensus for
foreign aid, Martin hammered away at Hill's backing for such programs. He decried
subsidies to foreign manufacturers and workers at the expense of Alabama's then large force of
textile workers: "These foreign giveaways have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and turned many areas of Alabama into distressed areas." Martin also condemned aid to
communist countries and the impact of the
United Nations on national policy. He questioned Hill's congressional
seniority as of little use when troops were dispatched in the fall of 1962 to compel the
desegregation of the
University of Mississippi. The Hill-Martin race drew considerable national attention. The liberal columnist
Drew Pearson wrote from
Decatur, Alabama, that "for the first time since
Reconstruction, the
two-party system, which
political scientists talk about for the South, but never expect to materialize, may come to Alabama."
The New York Times viewed the Alabama race as the most vigorous off-year effort in modern Southern history but predicted a Hill victory on the basis that Martin had failed to gauge "bread-and-butter" issues and was perceived by many as an "ultraconservative." Hill defeated Martin by 6,019 votes, 201,937 (50.9 percent) to 195,134 (49.1 percent). Turnout dropped sharply in 1962 compared to 1960, when presidential electors dominated the ballot, and the state split between the national Democratic ticket and unpledged electors who ultimately voted for U.S. Senator
Harry F. Byrd, Sr., of
Virginia. Nearly 250,000 who had voted in the 1960 U.S. Senate election won by Democrat
John Sparkman did not cast ballots in 1962. Hill won thirty-seven of the state's sixty-seven counties. Martin's strong showing enabled him to be elected in 1964 to the U.S. House, representing
the 7th District. ==Later life==