Congressmen from Texas to originally sign the Southern Manifesto,[2] a resolution in protest of the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

[9] According to prosecutors, he accepted a $25,000 bribe to intervene in the federal investigation of Monarch Construction Company of Silver Spring, Maryland.

[10] In 1973, after Dowdy retired from Congress, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, overturned the bribery and conspiracy convictions.

[11][12] Right-wing groups rallied to his defense, including the Washington Observer and the Liberty Lobby, which contended Dowdy was the victim of a "vicious frame-up by the Justice Department in collaboration with a clique of housing racketeers".

The ulterior motive, according to the newspaper, was to stop Dowdy's subcommittee investigation of the fraud at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.