Meet Sen. John Barrasso

Analysis: Who is Wyoming’s New Senator?

By Brodie Farquhar, 6-25-07

Dr. John Barrasso, who was appointed Friday to the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas, came into the impromptu race for the position with a high political profile, thanks to his work in public health and within the party.

But even today, as he is sworn in in Washington, there is little fodder for speculation on how the new Senator will represent Wyoming.

With that as a caveat, as well as the fact that I do not know Dr. Barrasso well and have only seen him in legislative action only during the 2006 session when I was covering it for the Casper Star Tribune, let’s take an analytical look at Dr. Barrasso’s past and see what it might say about his future.

Governor Dave Freudenthal picked the least experienced of the three candidates presented to him by the Wyoming Republican Party’s central committee. That’s true on an objective level and I think that’s why the Democratic governor picked Barrasso over Tom Sansonetti and Cynthia Lummis.

Sansonetti is one of those A-list attorneys and political operatives who have such lengthy and detailed resumes – several decades of work—that they fit better on a computer disk than on paper.

Sansonetti has state party chairman experience, congressional experience as Craig Thomas’ chief of staff in the House, as well as executive experience working for three Republican administrations (Reagan, Bush and Bush). There’s also Sansonetti’s extensive litigation and lobbying practice with Holland & Hart, working for and with the key extractive industries of the West: mining, oil and gas, ranching.

Lummis has legislative experience in Wyoming (12 years in the House, two in the Senate), as well as two terms as Wyoming’s state treasurer, during which she knocked heads a few times with Governor Freudenthal.

On a partisan scale, a case can be made that Sansonetti and Lummis are more partisan than Barrasso, and that may well have entered Freudenthal’s calculations.

Barrasso has the least amount of experience, compared to the other two, with not-quite five years in the Wyoming Senate.

That isn’t to say that Barrasso is not a savvy and skilled politician. Next to Sansonetti, Barrasso was the second-highest vote-getter throughout last Tuesday’s selection process before the GOP central committee.

Long before Barrasso ran against Mike Enzi in a ‘96 GOP primary (and after narrowly losing, became a key member of Enzi’s campaign) or getting elected to the state Senate, Barrasso was traveling all over the state, participating in health fairs and party events. He was ubiquitous and has become even more so. His newspaper health column is widely printed around the state, while his health commentaries are broadcast on television and radio. Barrasso has also hosted the Jerry Lewis Telethon broadcasts for several years.

Initially running as a social moderate, Barrasso has evolved from a moderate who wouldn’t interfere between physicians and women patients on the issue of abortion, to advocating a Laci Peterson type-law that would charge killers of pregnant women with two homicides – the mom and the fetus – thus advancing the stage for outlawing all abortions because the fetus was now a legal person. The legislature passed Barrasso’s bill last winter, which was vetoed by Freudenthal.

I don’t know why or how this ideological change has come about—whether Barrasso had a Road to Damascus conversion experience on the abortion issue, or whether he’s simply pandering to the right wing of his party. That would certainly make for an interesting interview.

Yet Barrasso also knows how to pick up and run with such progressive or populist themed bills as dropping the food tax in Wyoming, or banning smoking in public buildings. Barrasso helped rescue the food tax ban and gave it bi-partisan support after Democratic Representative Ann Robinson had pushed the bill for years, only to endure repeated snubs and rejections from the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. As for tobacco issues, the tobacco lobbyists and the Republicans are very tight indeed, so a bill to ban smoking in public places does show some independence on Barrasso’s part.

At Friday’s press conference, Barrasso didn’t want to answer reporter questions about some of the hot topics of the day—Iraq, the war on terror, immigration, etc.

“We’ll have ample time to discuss those issues in the future,” he said, closing the door on that avenue of questioning.

Today, Dr. Barrasso is in Washington, D.C., getting sworn in and learning what committee assignments he’ll get as the most junior member of the Senate.

Depending upon the generosity of the minority leadership, and the competition by senior senators for Thomas’ committee assignments, who knows where we’ll see his leadership develop.

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