Maloney served as mayor of Meriden from 1929 to 1933. He was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives of the seventy-third Congress and served from March 4, 1933 to January 3, 1935, in the session that was shorter than the usual two years because the time when the sessions would open was changed. He did not seek reelection, because he had been nominated for the Senate. He was elected to the Senate in 1934, re-elected in 1940 and served until his death in 1945. He was chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds in the seventy-seventh through seventy-ninth Congresses.