Jarrett Barrios

Jarrett Tomás Barrios is a politician from Massachusetts. He is a former member of both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Massachusetts Senate. The son of a carpenter and a social worker, Barrios first came to Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 17 to study at Harvard College. After graduating with high honors, working for the Boston City Council and on local campaigns, he obtained his law degree with honors from Georgetown University.

Barrios returned to Cambridge, where he has practiced law. In 1998, he began his legislative career when he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 2002, the voters of the Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex District elected him to the state Senate and he was re-elected unopposed in both 2004 and 2006.

On May 22 2007, Barrios announced that he would be resigning from the Senate in early July to become the president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. [cite-web|url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/05/barrios_to_take.html|title=Barrios to take job at Blue Cross|date=2007-05-22|accessdate=2008-06-30|publisher=Boston Globe] His successor is Anthony W. Galluccio, whom he had defeated in the 2002 Senate primary.

In July 2004 Barrios wrote to then Massachusetts State Crime Lab Director Carl Selavka concerning the case of Benjamin LaGuer to inquire about the whereabouts of missing fingerprints [http://benlaguer.com.hosting.domaindirect.com/barrios_letter.html] . In June 2006, Barrios gained national attention when he proposed legislation restricting the serving of "Fluffernutter" sandwiches (peanut butter with Marshmallow Fluff) in public schools. The proposal was widely mocked as an example of trivial and overly intrusive legislation, while Barrios supporters pointed to concerns over the problem of childhood obesity. [cite-web|url=http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/06/19/can_this_spread_be_stopped/|title=Can this spread be stopped|date=2006-06-19|accessdate=2008-06-30|publisher=Boston Globe]

Barrios is openly gay and many of his campaigns were supported by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. He is married to communications consultant and Democratic political operative Doug Hattaway. [cite-web|url=http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/05/23/barrios_set_to_resign_from_state_senate|title=Barrios set to resign from state senate|date=2007-05-23|accessdate=2008-06-30|publisher=Boston Globe]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://senatorbarrios.org/ Senate website]
* [http://www.barrios.org/ 'Jarrett Barrios for State Senate' campaign site]
* [http://www.mass.gov/legis/member/jtb0.htm General Court profile]