Donsero served as the village clerk of Royal Oak, Michigan in 1905 and 1906, as town treasurer in 1907 and 1908, and as village assessor in 1909. He graduated from the Detroit College of Law in 1910, was admitted to the bar, and started a practice in Royal Oak the same year. He was village attorney, 1911–1921 and assistant prosecuting attorney for Oakland County in 1918 and 1919. He was mayor of Royal Oak in 1921 and 1922 and a member of the boardof education, 1910–1928. In 1932, Dondero was elected as a Republican to the 73rd United States Congress and the eleven succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1933 to January 3, 1957. He represented Michigan's 17th congressional district, which was newly created following redistricting after the 1930 census. Following the 1950 census, most of Dondero's territory became the 18th district. Dondero was elected two more times from this district. Both districts are now obsolete. From 1937 to 1947 Dondero served as ranking member of the House Committee on Education. He was chairman of the Committee on Public Works in the 80th and 81st Congresses. In 1954, he sponsored the bill creating the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which allowed large ocean-going vessels access to the Great Lakes. A sympathiser with McCarthyism, Dondero claimed American liberals had been responsible for a "whitewash" over the Amerasia affair. In 1947, Dondero tried to block the trial of IG Farben executives for war crimes at Nuremberg by withholding funding for the prosecution team before indictments could be handed down. On July 9, 1947, US Representative George Anthony Dondero included Rosenberg when publicly questioneing the "fitness" of United States Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson for failing to ferret out Communist infiltrators in his department. The cause for concern arose from what Dondero called Patterson's lack of ability to "fathom the wiles of the international Communist conspiracy" and to counteract them with "competent personnel." Dondero cited ten government personnel in the War Department who had Communist backgrounds or leanings:
Dondero stated, "It is with considerable regret that I am forced to the conclusion the Secretary Patterson falls short of these standards." Dondero was most notable for mounting an attack on modern art, which he claimed to be inspired by Communism. He asserted that "Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder... Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule... Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of brainstorms". In 1952, Dondero went on to tell Congress that modern art was, in fact, a conspiracy by Moscow to spread communism in the United States. This speech won him the International Fine Arts Council's Gold Medal of Honor for "dedicated service to American Art." When art critic Emily Genauer interviewed Dondero in the mid-1950s he stated "modern art is Communistic because it is distorted and ugly, because it does not glorify our beautiful country, our cheerful and smiling people, our material progress. Art which does not glorify our beautiful country in plain simple terms that everyone can understand breeds dissatisfaction. It is therefore opposed to our government and those who promote it are our enemies." When Genauer pointed out the resemblance between his views and those of the Stalinist Communists he despised, Dondero was so enraged that he arranged to have her fired from her job at the New York Herald Tribune.
Death
Dondero died at the age of 84 in Royal Oak, Michigan and is interred there at Oakview Cemetery.
