Dilworth was elected to the
California State Assembly in 1936, where he served until his election to the state senate in 1944. Dilworth also served as chairman of the Senate Investigating Committee on Education. This committee produced several reports relating to alleged communists in education in California, including its Third Report in 1952, which identified that
Kenneth MacGowan, employed by the
University of California Berkeley, "has been affiliated with ... Communist front organizations" including the Motion Picture Artist's Committee and the Hollywood Democratic Party. The 1953 Dilworth Act specified that "no person knowingly a member of the Communist Party shall be employed or retained in employment by a school district" and that all school district employees have a duty to answer, under oath, questions about their membership in the Communist Party. Refusing to answer such questions constituted grounds for dismissal. One teacher dismissed for refusing to answer questions about her husband's associations was Jean Benson Wilkinson, a teacher in the
Los Angeles Unified School District. Her husband,
Frank Wilkinson, was an officer of the Los Angeles City Housing Authority. Jean Wilkinson was dismissed as a teacher after refusing to answer questions before a
California State Senate UnAmerican Activities Committee hearing which was investigating her husband. Dilworth is quoted as saying,"It is often true that many things which, in the end, bring benefits and satisfaction are very difficult to get started in the beginning. So it is going to be hard to save America from those who are pushing us and taxing us downhill into a form of state socialism. And there is no time to lose." and "Citizens must have labor preference over aliens." == Personal life ==