15 to Watch in 2015: Brent Barton
Monday, December 29, 2014
While Barton has been around the legislature since 2008, he’s one to watch because his future is bright, in part because of his age and ambition.
“He’s a young face,” said Jim Moore, Director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University. “The Democratic Party, while it seems to have a lock on state government, everyone who's been there has been there for 20 years.”
Barton one a house seat in 2008 and then gave it up for a run at the state senate in 2010. He was defeated by Republican Chuck Thomsen. But that didn’t stop Barton. In 2012, he was back at it and took a house seat 40, covering southwest Clackamas County.
“He’s got the experience of losing and clawing his way back,” Moore said. To him that proves he’s got the spirit to get ahead in state politics, despite taking his lumps in the 2010 election. “You don’t have to move to the senate to move forward in the legislature.”
Look for Barton to pull for issues like higher education. Barton himself is a graduate of Stanford, Harvard and Cambridge.
As a native of Reedsport, he’s also positioned well to work across the aisle on issues like the environment and economic development in rural areas outside the metro area. He's worked hard to get the state to support the redevelopment of the Willamette Falls in Oregon City.
“That’s how Kitzhaber got started,” Moore said, recalling the Governor’s early days of bipartisanship.
While Barton has been in the legislature for three sessions he doesn't have a chairmanship. That may mean mending fences with legislative leadership. But look for a move there.
Passionate about the law, Barton might become the new chair of the Judicial Committee. Barton is an attorney. So is his father Bill Barton, who was the first attorney to successfully, file, serve, and state a legal cause of action against the Vatican for sexual abuse.
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