Curtis was elected to the House of Representatives in 1938 on an anti-New Deal platform. He served from 1939 until 1954, being reelected every two years.[3] He ran for the Senate from Nebraska in 1954 and won; subsequently, incumbent Hazel Abel resigned, and Curtis was appointed to the seat on January 1, 1955, getting a two-day jump on seniority. Curtis thus became the last of six Senators to serve during the fifteenth Senate term for Nebraska's Class 2 seat, from January 3, 1949, to January 3, 1955. He was reelected threemoretimes to six-year terms, serving from 1955 to 1979.
During the 1963 investigation of bribery allegations against Democratic Party organizer Robert Baker, Curtis supposedly leaked a secret memorandum to advance his own positions.[11]
During the early 1970s, Curtis supported President Richard Nixon's Vietnam War escalation policy, and remained loyal to him throughout the Watergate Scandal. On August 6, 1974, two days before Nixon resigned, he implored Congress not to panic. He warned that the United States would become like a "banana republic" if Nixon was ousted in favor of Vice President Ford, who in turn would then select someone to fill the vice presidential slot. He said "this would mean both Ford and the new Vice President would be men who hadn't been elected to their high office, but merely nominated by a President under procedures for filling the vice presidency when it is vacant."[12]
Following his retirement, Curtis moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he practiced law, served as an officer of the conservative lobby the American Freedom Coalition, and gave occasional interviews to the media.
Curtis died in Lincoln on January 24, 2000, and is interred at Minden Cemetery in Minden, his longtime hometown. Following his death, he was praised on the floor by Strom Thurmond, a contemporary who had also been first elected to the Senate in 1954.
