Congressman Andy Barr
Andy Barr took the oath of office as the U.S. Representative for Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District on Jan. 3, 2013.
Serving Those Who Served
As the son of an Army veteran and the grandson of a World War II-era veteran who later became a Major General in the U.S. Army Reserve, Congressman Barr was raised to respect our veterans and their service to our nation. He is committed to supporting members of our military and created the Sixth District Veterans Coalition, giving service members, veterans, and their families a direct line of communication to their Representative in Congress.
Congressman Barr is working to reduce the VA’s shameful disability claims backlog, striving to improve the Department of Veteran Affairs services, fighting to maintain military retirement benefits, aggressively helping to improve job opportunities and housing assistance for veterans, and promoting earned education benefits to deserving active military and veterans among his many initiatives in Congress.
To ensure that all veterans have the opportunity to get the care they need, Congressman Barr helped introduce the Veterans Access to Care Act of 2014, legislation that would allow veterans to receive health care from local non-VA health centers and would enhance VA coordination of this care received outside of a VA. This bill and the Karen Tufts Military SAVE Act he introduced to empower survivors of military sexual trauma to select their own care providers and provide the support they need, would help address the challenges facing the VA by providing these brave men and women the very freedom of individual choice they have fought to protect.
He is committed to providing important protections and support for victims of domestic violence, supporting the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, and he supported several bipartisan anti-human trafficking bills that boost support and protection for victims and strengthen laws to ensure that both buyers and sellers engaged in trafficking are held accountable for their crimes.
Promoting policies that create a better environment for job creation and economic growth.
As Co-Chair of the Congressional Horse Caucus and a champion of Kentucky’s signature industries, Congressman Barr has introduced legislation that would strengthen the Commonwealth’s bourbon, equine, energy, agriculture and manufacturing industries.
He introduced H.R. 2312, the Aged Distilled Spirits Competitiveness Act, which would fix an inequality in the tax code that discriminates against Kentucky’s signature bourbon industry and help level the playing field. Unlike vodka or gin, bourbon is required by law to be stored for at least two years in charred-white oak barrels. However, bourbon distillers are unable to deduct their expenses during that unique aging process, placing them at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.
Congressman Barr’s priorities also include restoring government accountability. He has introduced the Live by the Laws You Write Act, an amendment to the Constitution to impose term limits on Members of Congress, and legislation that would hold Members of Congress accountable for their spending decisions by tying their pay to their ability to meet declining spending targets.
Barr also cosponsored and supported the No Budget, No Pay legislation that would require members of the House and Senate to pass a budget as a condition of receiving their salaries.
Advancing legislation to break the stranglehold of Washington bureaucrats and mounting regulations on American consumers and job-creators.
Congressman Barr supports reforming and reining in the misguided rules from unaccountable federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As a member of the Congressional Coal Caucus, Congressman Barr has advanced a number of measures to cut needless bureaucratic red tape and harmful regulations, increase our domestic energy production, and unshackle the job-creating potential of high-tech extraction and manufacturing industries.
Congressman Barr helped introduce H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, to fight the President’s Climate Action Plan and protect electric utility plants from excessive EPA regulation.
The House passed an amendment Congressman Barr helped introduce to the ALERRT Act, which would add accountability to agency rulemaking that negatively impacts employment and wages in the coal industry, protecting coal miners from further job losses caused by Washington regulations.
Congressman Barr cosponsored the REINS Act, a critical tool in the battle against job-destroying overregulation. The REINS Act passed the House including a jobs amendment Barr introduced to require the agency drafting a federal rule to include a job-impact assessment in the proposal's cost-benefit analysis in the bill’s final passage.
A tireless advocate for his constituents, Congressman Barr consistently listens to their concerns and takes their recommendations to Washington.
In an ongoing effort to be an accessible and transparent Representative, Congressman Barr has formed coalitions focused on finding solutions to issues facing Kentucky’s signature equine, agriculture and energy industries.
Congressman Barr continues to implement his Accessibility Initiative, holding public events in each county he represents, meeting directly with constituents, maintaining monthly staff office hours in every county, maintaining an active social media presence, and sending a weekly eNewsletter.
After speaking with several farmers in the Sixth District and learning that the USDA proposed a 7.2 percent reduction to their final tobacco payments, Congressman Barr worked tirelessly and successfully to ensure that the USDA would provide the full amount to tobacco quota holders.
When firefighters across the Sixth District shared their concerns that the IRS’ practice of treating volunteer firefighters as employees would force fire companies and municipalities to provide health insurance to volunteers or pay a fine under Obamacare’s mandate, Congressman Barr successfully petitioned the IRS to clarify that emergency services volunteers will not subject to the Obamacare employer mandate.
Congressman Barr successfully worked with the local leadership at the Blue Grass Army Depot to demonstrate to Army leadership the critical role of the emergency personnel at BGAD, securing an exemption from the scheduled furloughs.
After hearing from farmers across central and eastern Kentucky about last-minute regulatory changes that prevented many farmers who were previously covered by crop insurance for the 2013 planting season from receiving that coverage, Congressman Barr introduced legislation to ensure instances like that do not reoccur in the future and successfully fought to reverse the decision to implement new, special provisions of insurance for burley and flue-cured tobacco.
A member of the United Solutions Caucus, Congressman Barr consistently reaches across the aisle to work on real, commonsense compromises.
Congressman Barr worked with Congressman Ami Bera, MD (D-CA), a physician from California to introduce the bipartisan Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act, legislation that would reduce malpractice risk for physicians who use evidence-based guidelines, improve patient health, and lower health care costs by cutting down on defensive medicine.
He worked with Congressman Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) to develop and pass the HELP Rural Communities Act, which ensures that Washington bureaucrats don’t needlessly and arbitrarily restrict access to credit for people in rural areas like Bath County, Kentucky.
Congressman Barr also collaborated with Congressman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) to pass the bipartisan Restoring Proven Financing for American Employers Act, legislation correcting an overreach by federal regulators implementing Dodd-Frank that prohibits investments by banks in debt securities issued by collateralized loan obligations, which are important, affordable and reliable sources of commercial credit for many growing American companies.
Personal
Congressman Barr graduated from Lexington's Henry Clay High School in 1992, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Government and Philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1996, and received his law degree from the University of Kentucky in 2001.
Congressman Barr is a 2007 graduate of Leadership Lexington, a member of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and has served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden and Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky.
He and his wife, Carol, are the proud parents of Eleanor, 3, and Mary Clay, 1.