During this time, Davis served as chairman of the House Special Committee on Campaign Expenditures, a group which was charged with attempting to find a legal way to control the influence of money on politics and looked into the beginning of what became, many years later, became the system of campaign finance reform that started to be implemented after the Watergate scandal.

He was a signatory to the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.

The Memphis area became much friendlier to Republicans in the 1960s, in part due to a massive crossover of white voters from the Democrats.

As evidence of this growing influence, Davis barely held onto his seat in 1962, defeating his Republican challenger, former city councilman Robert James, by only 1,200 votes.

In 1964, Davis lost the August Democratic primary to Shelby County legislator George W. Grider, a retired naval officer and fellow attorney.

On December 9, 2021, the U.S. Senate voted to remove Clifford Davis' name from the Federal Building in Memphis due to his ties to the Ku Klux Klan.