Nunn's victory got Lewis a state job for a time and encouragement to run in 1971 for the Kentucky House of Representatives in his native Greenup County.

Though he lost the legislative race in a Democratic year in Kentucky, Lewis maintained an interest in GOP politics.

Lewis worked in sales for several companies, including Ashland Oil, before teaching for five years at Watterson College in Louisville, Kentucky, having begun in 1980.

In 1994, Lewis filed to run against longtime Democratic Representative William H. Natcher in the general election in November 1994.

Although Lewis had been personally endorsed by the state GOP leadership and Senator Mitch McConnell, he was considered somewhat of a "sacrificial lamb" candidate.

Lewis tied Prather to an unpopular Bill Clinton and a proposal to raise taxes on tobacco, the staple crop of the state.

It was a result that many political pundits, as Larry J. Sabato noted in his Crystal Ball newsletter, saw as a harbinger of the Republican gains in Congress in the regular election later that year.

[3] Lewis was elected to a full term that November, when he defeated Democrat David Adkisson with 60 percent of the vote.

In 2004, Lewis joined numerous Republican colleagues in sponsoring legislation that would allow lawmakers to override certain Supreme Court decisions by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate.

In the 2006 election, Lewis defeated retired U.S. Army Colonel Mike Weaver, a former member of the Kentucky House of Representatives.