Melody Barnes

Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council (since January 2009)

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Why She Matters

Barnes brings both impressive Hill experience and strong progressive credentials to her job as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Barnes began her Washington career working for the House Judiciary Committee, where she helped pass a bill requiring bilingual ballots. She became the chief counsel to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in 1995, advising him on civil-rights legislation and women's issues. In 2004, Barnes was named executive vice president of the Center for American Progress, left-leaning think tank started by 2008 Obama transition co-chair John D. Podesta as a Democratic-government-in-waiting. But she left soon after to campaign for then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) In Obama's White House, Barnes is a key economic player, focusing particularly on education as key to long-term economic growth. "It's a big mistake not to recognize education as an economic issue," Barnes said in April 2011. "We have seen a real loss in the [gross domestic product] as a result of not applying the same kind of education reforms that some of our global competitors have."

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Co-chair of the Agency Review, Obama-Biden Transition Team (Nov. 2008 to Jan. 2009); Senior domestic policy adviser, Barack Obama 's Presidential campaign (2008); Executive Vice President for policy, Center for American Progress (2004 to 2008)
Birthday: April 29, 1964
Hometown: Richmond, Va.

Alma Mater: University of North Carolina, B.A., 1986; University of Michigan, J.D. 1989
Spouse: Marland Buckner Jr.

Path to Power

Barnes was born in Richmond, Va., in 1964.

She received her B.A. in history from the University of North Carolina in 1986, then moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., for law school. She graduated with her J.D. from the University of Michigan in 1989.

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She began her legal career with Shearman and Sterling in New York City. She left her position there in 2002 to work as director of legislative affairs for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Barnes accepted a position as assistant counsel to the House Judiciary subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights soon after. There, she worked with congressional leaders to pass the Voting Rights Improvement Act of 1992, which required many parts of election ballots be bilingual.

In 1995, Barnes accepted a position as Kennedy's chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that job, she shaped civil rights legislation. She also focused on improving the lives of women and expanding reproductive rights and religious liberties.

In 2003, Barnes left the Hill to lobby for the Raben Group, a consulting firm for health and education associations, Constitution and justice foundations, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations, among other things. Raben Group purports to combine "inside the Beltway experience," with "outside the box thinking." Her key clients were the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

She stayed until 2004, when she was named executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP). There, she worked on recruiting fellows and building a network of outside policy experts.

Obama Campaign

Barnes joined the Obama campaign as a senior domestic policy adviser in 2008. There, she helped develop the campaign's education and health-care policies. She was also an ardent campaigner and Obama surrogate, participating in hundreds of interviews for radio and television stations. She also spoke at rallies and even spent an afternoon working at a phone bank with actress Ashley Judd.

After Obama won the election, Barnes became co-chair for the transition team's "Agency Review Working Group," which assigned teams of Obama supporters to review government departments and agencies from top to bottom.

Barnes was named chair of the White House Domestic Policy Council on Nov. 24, 2008.

Liberal bloggers praised the appointment. Many who had been disappointed by the president's more centrist picks for other top positions said Barnes' selection was a sign that Obama hadn't forgotten his progressive base.

But Republicans such as Karl Rove called the appointment "troubling," and suggested that Barnes would radicalize government-run health care.

The Issues

Barnes has said her first priority would be addressing the economic crisis with an $787 billion stimulus package.

In the White House, she has focused on health care and education, though has also worked on immigration, criminal justice and the economy.

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Barnes has emphasized the importance of incorporating a variety of different voices into the discussion on how to fix many of the country's problems. She said the administration will allow citizens to communicate with the White House through videos and other technology. "We are counting, counting on you to talk to us so that we can use that information to build the solutions that are going to bring opportunity and mobility back to this country," she told Juan Williams of NPR.

Education

Barnes is a forceful advocate for early childhood education.

She opposes vouchers, and instead has said the Obama administration will make "an investment in public schools," developing charter schools and magnet schools that meet the needs of a wide variety of students.

She has also called for an end to the "war on science," and particularly on research funding, waged by the Bush administration. Increased science education will give American high-tech companies a competitive edge, Barnes has argued. Science is "a tool to help solve many of the problems before us," she told NPR.

Barnes believes that education is key to long-term recovery from the 2008-2009 economic recession, and has worked closely with the business community to determine which skills should be studied in community college, for instance, for utilization in the workforce. She is also interested in building specilialized hubs for certain fields like technology's Silicon Valley.

Urban Renewal

Barnes would like the federal government to reinvest in urban areas. She has called for tax breaks for businesses that move to urban cores. She has also called HIV and AIDS an urban problem that needs immediate attention. She would like to provide better health care for those who suffer from AIDS, as well as early testing for HIV.

Women's Rights

Barnes believes every woman must have access to contraception. She has decried what she sees as a "conservative attack" on family planning options. "Family planning is the only realistic and proven means of reducing abortion rates and empowering women, and men, to make decisions about their lives and their families," she wrote in an essay for the Center for American Progress.

She says programs like Title X, which funds free clinics that provide basic health services, including pap smears and breast cancer screenings, as well as contraception to women, should be expanded.

She is fervently in favor of abortion rights and has called on progressives to "rigorously question" judges who oppose the tenets of Roe v. Wade. She also opposes the global gag rule, which pulls money from international organizations that perform abortion.

The Network

At the Center for American progress, Barnes has worked closely with Tom Daschle and Obama 2008 transition team leader John Podesta. She was also an executive vice president at the organization with Heather Higginbottom and Neera Tanden, who also worked in the Obama administration.

Barnes is on the Board of Directors of The Constitution Project, EMILY's List, and The Maya Angelou Public Charter School.

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