Faced with a hostile legislature and a dire economic forecast, Patton was unable to enact much significant legislation in his second term, and his situation was exacerbated, in 2002, when news of an extramarital affair and allegations of a sex-for-favors scandal broke.

Later in his term, Patton was attacked for pardoning four of his political advisers who were indicted for violating Kentucky's campaign finance laws and for allegedly abusing his patronage powers.

Members of the UMWA local at Shelby Gap maintained that Patton was arrested for clipping a striking miner on a picket line with his pickup truck in the late 1970s.

[3] After a meeting with allies of his friend First District Congressman Carroll Hubbard in Madisonville on September 20, 1978, Patton considered a run for governor in 1979.

[11] However, he subsequently decided that he lacked the time to organize a campaign before the May primary election; a letter leaked to The Paducah Sun showed that he believed he was losing Hubbard's support.

This stance may have hurt him, because although some county residents resented the mandatory fee for garbage pick-up, many more recognized the benefits, as illegal dump sites became less common.

[16] He brought the county its first manufacturing company and stopped the practice of giving away gravel, drains, and bridge lumber from district warehouses to private citizens.

In 1989 he was re-elected for a third term as judge/executive, receiving over 70 percent of the vote in a three-way Democratic primary and subsequently winning the general election by nearly a three-to-one margin.

His major opposition in the Democratic primary came from secretary of state Bob Babbage and President Pro Tempore of the Kentucky Senate John "Eck" Rose.

[24] Though Babbage and Rose were political veterans and solid campaigners, Patton won 152,203 votes in the primary, well over the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff.

[25] State Democrats were also tainted by the Operation Boptrot investigation that sent many of their legislators, including House Speaker Don Blandford, to prison for political corruption.

[25] Though Patton had ambitions to enact education reform, early in his administration, his financial adviser, James R. Ramsey, convinced him to propose a conservative budget in the first legislative session.

Patton also anticipated difficulty persuading legislators to invest an estimated $100 million in equipment and processes to realize improved efficiency.

Patton formed an Office for Technology and made improvements in the compatibility and interoperability of the state's computer systems that were recommended by his son, Chris.

By the time Patton's efficiency program was fully implemented, the state was realizing an annual return of 75 cents for every dollar initially invested.

[31] Patton was disappointed when Greg Stumbo, a leader in the Kentucky House of Representatives and former advocate of an independent community-college system, announced his opposition the plan.

[31] Stumbo represented the community of Prestonsburg, an eastern Kentucky coal mining town, and Patton surmised that he was still angry about the worker's compensation bill.

To qualify for a KEES scholarship, students have to score at least a 2.5 grade point average in high school and attend a college or university in Kentucky.

This issue allowed him to work with a political foe, Republican senator David L. Williams, who had been pushing for additional resources for adult education since 1997.

"[40] After the gubernatorial election in 1999, Louisville senator Dan Seum announced he would change his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, citing his conservative voting history, including opposition to the state lottery, KERA, and abortion.

[48] Leeper had a history of conflict with Democratic Senate President Larry Saunders, but he insisted his party switch, like Seum's, was based on political philosophy.

[56] Already plagued by an uncooperative legislature, Patton's situation was exacerbated, in 2002, when it was revealed that, during his first term in office, he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a woman named Tina Conner.

[40] According to Conner, the operator of Birchtree Healthcare nursing home in Clinton, Kentucky, the relationship ended in 1999, but Patton continued to call her, until she completely broke off the affair in October 2001.

[58] Two months after Conner said she ended the affair, Birchtree Healthcare was cited by state regulators for numerous violations of health and safety rules.

[60] Together, with his Republican vice-chair, Idaho's Dirk Kempthorne, Patton led the NGA effectively, securing federal funding to shore up state budgets and keeping the caucus from a partisan split in a vote over Medicaid.

[67] These charges were particularly damaging because, earlier in the year, the General Assembly had ordered Patton to cut 800 non-merit positions to help balance the budget.

[66] The indictments stemmed from charges by then-candidate Larry Forgy that Patton had skirted campaign finance laws by coordinating expenditures with the Teamsters and the state Democratic Party.

[67] A Franklin County grand jury returned the indictments in 1998, but a circuit court judge dismissed them, in 1999, on grounds that the campaign finance law was too vague.

[71] In September 2009, the Executive Branch Ethics Commission issued an advisory opinion that Patton could serve in both roles without a significant conflict of interest, because the CPE wields scant oversight of Kentucky's private colleges.

[75] On December 30, 2011, he announced his resignation from the Council on Postsecondary Education, to avoid any potential accusations of a conflict of interest regarding the proposal in the 2012 General Assembly.