That year, he won the Democratic primary over George Otlowski and ran for the House of Representatives seat for the new 15th congressional district, which had been created as a result of 1960 census data.

[1][4] The Democratic Patten successfully ran the election, defeating Republican challenger Bernard F. Rodgers by nearly 20,000 votes.

[1] In his time in Congress, Patten sponsored twenty-nine bills, all related to various purposes such as Social Security, human rights, and Medicare.

[13] [14] Patten fared far better than some of his counterparts, such as California representative Richard T. Hanna who was sentenced to six to thirty months in jail,[14] and ended up serving one year in federal prison.

After politics, he continued to remain active in the various organizations he belonged to, such as the NAACP, Eagles, Elks, Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus, and Moose International.