Rep. Joe Barton (R) Elected 1984, 11th term
Born:	Sept. 15, 1949, Waco
Home:	Ennis
Education:	Texas A&M U., B.S. 1972, Purdue U., M.S. 1973
Religion:	United Methodist
Marital Status:	married (Terri)
Professional Career:	Asst. to V.P., Ennis Business Forms, 1973-81; White House Fellow, U.S. Dept. of Energy, 1981-82; Consultant, Atlantic Richfield Co., 1982-84.
DC Office	2109 RHOB20515, 202-225-2002; Fax: 202-225-3052; Web site: joebarton.house.gov
State Offices	Arlington, 817-543-1000; Ennis, 817-543-1000.
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The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex--yes, the name is part of everyday speech there--has spread outward from its historic nodes in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth. Although Dallas is the larger population center, much of the development has moved west, across the dusty plains where one crosses the barely perceptible Balcones Escarpment, the geologist's boundary between green and grassy East Texas and the brown and barren West. This was empty territory a few decades ago; now it has mostly been filled in, with subdivisions and shopping centers that leave some feeling of the shape of this land under the enormous Texas sky. The biggest city here is Arlington, once seemingly all suburban, with all-American attractions like Six Flags over Texas, Wet 'n' Wild and the Ballpark in Arlington, commissioned by the former part owner of the Texas Rangers, George W. Bush. But this is not just white bread suburbia any more. Arlington's population in 2000 was 18% Hispanic, 14% black and 6% Asian; just a couple miles south of Six Flags is a mixed Latino-Vietnamese area with Mexican restaurants and Asian delis, and the Arlington police gives extra pay to officers who can speak Spanish or Vietnamese. Arlington today is mostly grown; the big growth now comes south of Fort Worth and Arlington, in Crowley and Mansfield, where the Big League Dreams sports complex is about to be joined by a residential/retail town center. Growth has been so robust that Tarrant County, the third largest county in Texas, was in 2004 the 18th largest county in the country, just ahead of New York County, New York (Manhattan), and just behind Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas).

The 6th Congressional District of Texas includes all of Arlington and the southern fringe of Fort Worth to the west. Two-thirds of its people live in Arlington and Tarrant County. The largest number of the rest are in Ellis County, directly south of Dallas County, which also has been growing rapidly. The district also includes all or part of six counties running to the southeast, most of the way to Houston. Politically, this territory was ancestrally Democratic for many years; all of it voted for John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in 1960. But those days are gone. In 2004, the 6th District voted 66% for George W. Bush.

The congressman from the 6th District is Joe Barton, a Republican first elected in 1984. Barton grew up in Ennis, in then rural Ellis County just south of Dallas. He graduated from Texas A&M and Purdue, worked as an oil company engineer and was a White House Fellow. When Phil Gramm ran for the Senate in 1984, Barton ran for his 6th District House seat, and won the Republican runoff by only 10 votes and the general with 57% of the vote. At first, Barton had two great causes, one defunct, the other successful--in a way. The first was the superconductor Supercollider, an enormous scientific laboratory that was to have been built in Waxahachie, in Ellis County. In retrospect this was a Texas project, alive only so long as George H.W. Bush was president; despite Barton's efforts, the House voted 282-143 to zero it out in 1993. His other cause has been sponsorship of a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds vote to raise taxes. When the House took up the issue in early 1995, leadership whispered there was no way the tax limitation measure could win the needed 290 votes. In fact it got 253. Barton claimed progress across the country, where many states have approved tax-limitation plans. But the budget surpluses starting in 1998 changed the conversation, and the amendment has been mostly forgotten.

In 1995 Barton became chairman of the Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee and conducted extensive hearings on food and drug laws. These resulted in enactment, with bipartisan support, of significant FDA modernization, encouraging the agency to more quickly review innovative drugs and medical devices. In 1999 Barton became chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee. Barton's subcommittee had jurisdiction over part of the Bush energy plan, which Barton generally supported. He surprised some by supporting higher fuel economy standards and reaching agreement with Michigan Democrat John Dingell on the issue. His bill, passed in subcommittee in July 2001, required a cut of 5 billion gallons in light truck gas consumption by 2010.

All the while Barton pressed for action on electricity regulation. In December 2001, despite the implosion of Enron, heretofore the nation's largest electricity trader, he was pressing for subcommittee action and seeking agreement with Democrat Rick Boucher, though their positions continued to differ. In February 2002 the subcommittee held markup hearings but Barton suspended them, at Tauzin's request, to assess the Enron collapse more fully. In July, he circulated another draft, which differed considerably from the version that passed the Senate. Barton retreated from requiring utilities to join regional transmission organizations and sought to encourage them to do so, to produce an easy basis for exchanges of traded electricity. His version repealed the 1930s Public Utility Holding Company Act and repealed also the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act except to the extent it was maintained in the Senate bill. Interestingly, this was an issue on which a Republican like Barton was trying to increase federal regulatory power while Democrats like John Dingell and Henry Waxman were trying to maintain state primacy. In September Tauzin took the issue before the full committee and, amid an onslaught of Democratic amendments, pushed it through. Later in September a House-Senate conference committee took it up but it went no farther. Tauzin reintroduced the bill in the 108th Congress; it passed the House again in April 2003.

In February 2004 Tauzin announced he would retire from Congress, and Barton was selected to succeed him as Energy and Commerce chairman. He said he wanted to focus on investigations, as John Dingell had when he was chairman from 1981 to 1995. He appointed Texan Ralph Hall, who had just switched to the Republican party, to his old subcommittee chairmanship. He aroused partisan feelings sometimes, as when in September 2004 he blocked committee Democrats' demand for information on Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force. But he also worked successfully to win Democratic votes in some issues and to defend and expand the committee's jurisdiction. Not all his efforts were successful. In November 2004 he said he would no longer grant committee members waivers to serve on other committees; several, including some who had seats on Financial Services to follow their issues when the committee jurisdictions were altered in 2001, protested, and Barton said he would issue waivers on a case-by-case basis. He sought a waiver himself to serve as chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, as Dingell had; it was not granted. He got Michael Bilirakis, who had announced he would retire in 2006, removed as chairman of the Health Subcommittee, but did not get his initial choices on some other subcommittees. He said he wanted to bump Heather Wilson off the committee after she voted with Democrats to seek internal administration cost estimates of the Medicare prescription drug bill; she is still on.

Conflicts with other committees are inevitable on Energy and Commerce. Barton clashed with Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner on database privacy; Barton pushed a bill seeking consumers' access to information, while Sensenbrenner backed one allowing less access backed by content providers. Barton supported a bill to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow individuals to make backup copies of copyrighted material; Judiciary was opposed. Barton held a hearing in May 2004 on Medicare physician payments after Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas publicly urged the Bush administration to revise them. Barton got Energy and Commerce to approve 45-5 a computer spyware bill that cracked down on these programs; Bob Goodlatte and Judiciary backed a more cautious approach. Barton sought to maintain the committee's jurisdiction over cybersecurity and prevailed in a closed Republican caucus which backed him 65-59 over Homeland Security Chairman Christopher Cox.

Telecommunications issues are a major responsibility of Energy and Commerce. After CBS's Dan Rather broadcast charges against George W. Bush based on phony documents, Barton said he might call a hearing on the subject after the election, but rejected any pre-election hearing; in the end no hearing was held. In October 2004 Barton and Chip Pickering asked the FCC to assert jurisdiction over VoIP Internet phoning. After Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl broadcast, the committee voted to increase the fines on broadcast indecency. In October 2004 Barton tried to put the bill raising the maximum fine for one incident from $32,500 to $500,000 in the defense authorization. That failed, but the House passed the bill in February 2005; in March Barton said he supported similar restrictions on satellite and cable service. In early 2005 there was pressure to pass a revision of the 1996 telecommunications act. But in February Barton called for a stand-alone bill to require broadcasters to return the analog spectrum to the government by the end of 2006; current law allows them to delay until 85% of households have digital TV. Much of the focus of any telecom changes will be on the universal service fund, dearly beloved by Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens; Barton seemed to be setting out a marker when he said, "We could just repeal it. That's one way to deal with it. Do we have a universal service fund for newspapers? … No, because the market can allocate that."

On the energy bill, Barton insisted on retaining provisions barring liability of the manufacturers of MTBE, the fuel additive which federal regulations encouraged oil companies to put in gasoline; that provision prevented passage in the Senate in 2003 and 2004. In April 2004 he said he was open to exempting the Defense Department from the Clean Air Act, RCRA and the Superfund; but he opposed it in September and had a turf fight with Armed Services's Joel Hefley on the subject. In December 2004 he seemed to despair of a comprehensive energy bill. "I would just as soon split the bill up, move what you can move, do it by bits and pieces, and if we can get good things passed that way, I'm all for it." But the Bush administration and Senate Energy Chairman Pete Domenici kept pressing. Barton still seemed wary of provisions that might kill the bill in the Senate. He called for keeping oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge out of the bill and in February 2005 considered capping spending on coastal restoration, electricity reliability, ultradeep drilling research and energy-savings performance contracts to $500 million over 10 years. In April 2005, a bill with most of these was voted in committee 39-16 and passed on the floor 249-183, in both cases with many Democratic votes.

Energy and Commerce is a great platform for generating contributions, and Barton has raised much more money than he is ever likely to need to spend in his district. In June 2004 he hosted a fundraiser for Billy Tauzin III, who was running for his father's seat, as Tauzin had hosted a fundraiser for Barton's son when he ran for Congress (both sons lost). When Texas Democrat Chris Bell charged that Tom DeLay put a provision favoring Westar into the energy bill in 2002 in return for a political contribution, Barton said that he had put the provision in some time before. At home he was criticized by Democrats for seeking in 2003 and 2004 to keep Ellis County outside EPA's Dallas region for purposes of the Clean Air Act; Ellis County is home to three cement producers and other companies whose PACs or executives contributed to Barton's campaigns, and the county produces 40% of the industrial emissions in North Texas. Barton said there was no connection between the contributions and his action and argued that there was no scientific basis for Ellis County's inclusion. But in April 2004, the EPA decided otherwise, and that Ellis County must work to reduce air pollution.

Barton has also had some political disappointments. He ran for the Senate in 1993 after Lloyd Bentsen resigned to be Treasury secretary but finished third with just 14% of the vote in the May all-party primary. In September 2001, when Phil Gramm announced his retirement from the Senate, Barton considered running for his seat. But in early October, busy with electricity and energy legislation and amid talk that the Bush White House favored Attorney General John Cornyn, he announced he would not run. He has been reelected easily in the 6th District.

Committees

• Energy & Commerce (Chmn. of 31 R).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	0	0	90	69	100	96	94	91	--
2003	5	--	0	0	--	67	97	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	21%	--	75%		15%	--	84%
Social	14%	--	85%		31%	--	67%
Foreign	0%	--	89%		15%	--	84%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. DC School Vouchers Y 6. Ban Human Cloning *		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Joe Barton (R)	168,767	66%	$1,883,891
	Morris Meyer (D)	83,609	33%	$101,080
	Other	3,251	1%
2004 primary	Joe Barton (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Joe Barton (R)	115,396	70%	$1,324,767
	Felix Alvarado (D)	45,404	28%	$13,367
	Other	3,237	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (88%); 1998 (73%); 1996 (77%); 1994 (76%); 1992 (72%); 1990 (66%); 1988 (68%); 1986 (56%); 1984 (57%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 173,476 (66%) Kerry (D) 87,454 (34%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 140,140 (66%) Gore (D) 71,283 (34%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Sixth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R +15
• District Size: 6,336 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,619; 80.0% urban; 20.0% rural
• Median Household Income: $45,857; 10.4% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 24.1% blue collar; 62.4% white collar; 13.5% gray collar; 12.4% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 65.8% White, 12.8% Black, 3.4% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 1.5% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 15.9% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 8.7% German, 8.6% USA, 7.3% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.