[3] When long-time congressman Joe H. Eagle did not seek reelection in 1936 so he could run for the United States Senate, Thomas sought and won the Democratic nomination, which was tantamount to election.

In Congress, Thomas was a protégé of Texas Senator (later President) Lyndon B. Johnson but maintained a generally conservative voting record.

In that capacity, he was able to steer projects to Texas including supporting Johnson's proposal to build the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station.

Thomas also served on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and was instrumental in securing the location of the United States National Aeronautics & Space Administration's Manned Spacecraft Center (later named after Lyndon Johnson) in Houston in 1961.

Then Vice President Lyndon Johnson was chairman of the Space Council, and Thomas, a member of the NASA board, played leading roles in the eventual acceptance of Rice University's offer.

Along with the majority of the Texan delegation, Thomas declined to sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.

The President then resumed in a more serious vein, "But in any case, the United States next month will have a leadership in space which it wouldn't have without Albert Thomas.

[15] In the fall of 1967, downtown Houston's Albert Thomas Convention and Exhibit Center (renovated in the late 1990s as the Bayou Place entertainment and dining complex) was built and named in his honor.