Brereton Jones
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Brereton Chandler Jones (born June 27, 1939) is an American political figure. He served as the Democratic governor of Kentucky from 1991 until 1995.
Jones began his political career in the early 1970s in West Virginia as a Republican, serving several terms in the state's House of Delegates and eventually becoming the House Minority Leader. Soon afterwards, he moved to Kentucky and changed parties.
Jones moved to Kentucky and he and his wife Libby ran a horse farm in Woodford County. Jones ran for Lieutenant Governor in 1987 and won. Relations between Jones and Governor Wallace G. Wilkinson deteriorated soon after they took office; the two were never close. Their rivalry became so strong that in the 1991 gubernatorial primary Wilkinson's wife Martha ran against Jones, ending her candidacy shortly before the election because polls showed that she would lose to Jones.
In Kentucky, one of Jones' major accomplishments was successfully pushing for a state constitutional amendment to allow Kentucky governors and other statewide elected officials to run for and serve a second consecutive term. The issue had been considered several times in the preceding decades, but had never been enacted. Most recently, Jones' predecessor Wallace G. Wilkinson had sought such an amendment but Wilkinson's insistence that he himself be eligible for succession was not something the General Assembly was willing to give him. Jones backed a succession amendment that did not include Jones.
At the end of his term Jones retired to the horse farm in Woodford County that he and his wife Libby operated. Jones talked openly of running against incumbent governor Paul E. Patton in 1999 but did not enter the race.
| Preceded by: Wallace G. Wilkinson | Governor of Kentucky 1991–1995 | Succeeded by: Paul E. Patton |