[2] He was active in New York City and state politics, and held a number of elective and appointive offices in the twenty years before he became borough president.
He was at times Queens Park Department Secretary, Deputy State Comptroller, and the city's Commissioner of Markets.
He was well liked by the Queens leadership and an ally of Connolly, but Mayor Walker was thought to not be pleased with the selection, fearing the taint of the scandal would damage Democrats in the 1928 elections.
[6] He easily won his party's nomination for Borough President in the election later that year, but he lost to Republican candidate George U. Harvey, who made fighting political corruption and Connolly's involvement in the sewer graft scandal central themes of his campaign.
In order to ease relations and help unify the various factions among the Democrats, Mayor Walker named Patten to become the borough's Commissioner of Taxes and Assessment in 1930.