 Rose was the last President Pro Tempore of the Kentucky Senate when the office was the Senate's highest after the Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, before a 1992 constitutional amendment removed the Lieutenant Governor as the Senate's presiding officer and created the office of President of the Kentucky Senate.In 1993 Rose became the first to hold that office, and he remained in that position until 1997.Rose ran for Governor of Kentucky in 1995, finishing third in the five-way Democratic primary won by Paul E. Patton, who also won the general election that November.