In July 1937, he pardoned Luke Lea, a Tennessee politician and former U.S. senator, who had been paroled a year earlier.

Though opposed to integrated education, he said that the people of the state "do believe in equality of opportunity in their respective fields of service" and that "the white race cannot afford to do less than simple justice to the Negro.

He opposed Harry S. Truman's attempt to make the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) permanent.

[15] He supported President Truman's refusal to allow Congress access to records of government employees' loyalty investigations.

[4] In 1950, Hoey opposed statehood for Hawaii because he thought it "inconceivable" to allow a territory with "only a small percentage of white people" to become a state.

"[17] Douglas Charles characterizes Hoey's involvement in the committee as reluctant, due to fears that the issue could become hyperbolic, leaving chief counsel Francis Flanagan as the actual driving force behind the Hoey Report [18] The 1957 Crittenden Report, a review by the U.S. Navy, criticized it: "No intelligence agency, as far as can be learned, adduced any factual data before that committee with which to support these opinions.

[4] He was a lifelong member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and taught Sunday school classes.

In 1974, journalist Jonathan Daniels assessed Hoey's politics as "always satisfactory to conservative interests without being abrasive to New Dealers.

According to a unanimous vote of the trustees of Western Carolina, "Hoey's espoused racist views are contrary to this university's core values of diversity and equality.