Bill Barrett obit

Former U.S. Rep. Bill Barrett dies in hometown of Lexington at age 87

 

He was not on the list.

LINCOLN — Bill Barrett, who served 10 years in the U.S. Congress and 12 in the Nebraska Legislature, was remembered Wednesday as a politician who preferred consensus and collegiality over partisan bickering and conflict.

Barrett, a Republican Party activist, died Tuesday night in his hometown of Lexington, Nebraska. He was 87.

Funeral services are pending.

Those who worked with and for Barrett, who represented central and western Nebraska’s 3rd congressional district, said he was a fair-minded conservative who was able to work out difficult issues but grew frustrated with the bitter partisan wars in Washington.

“I think (Kansas U.S. Rep.) Pat Roberts once called him the ‘pillar of bipartisanship,’” said Jeri Finke, Barrett’s chief of staff in Congress. “He did not care about a ‘60-Minutes’ interview. He would always ask me, does this help the 3rd District?”

Former U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., who served in Congress with Barrett, said that despite the “partisan emotions and acrimony” in Washington, he never heard Barrett “say a nasty word about anybody or their motives.”

“Bill Barrett is the kind of person we need in public affairs,” Bereuter said.

Barrett, a Navy veteran, served on the Republican National Committee during the 1960s, chaired the Nebraska campaign for Gerald Ford’s presidential run in 1976 and served as state GOP chairman. In Lexington he sold real estate and insurance.

In 1979, then-Gov. Charlie Thone appointed him to a vacancy in the State Legislature. Barrett didn’t plan to run for re-election, but grew to like the job, and stayed for 12 years, the final four as Speaker, the top leadership post in the 49-seat Unicameral.

Former State Sen. Dennis Byars of Beatrice said that Barrett was sometimes wrongly portrayed as being “hard core.” But when it came to the needs of the handicapped, a major concern for Byars, Barrett listened.

“He was always interested in the dollars, but he cared,” said Byars, now a Gage County Commissioner. “Bill Barrett had a big heart.”

Barrett was ready to end his political career in 1990 when then-U.S. Rep. Virginia Smith decided against seeking re-election to represent central and western Nebraska in the House. Barrett bested five other Republicans in the primary, edged then-State Sen. Sandi Scofield, a Democrat, in the general election.

In Congress, he was elected president of his freshman congressional class, a group that included U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who eventually became speaker of the House. Barrett rose to vice chair of the Agriculture Committee and may have been best known for co-authoring the 1996 Freedom to Farm Bill.

When Barrett decided to retire from the 3rd District seat in 2000, then-U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., described him as totally trustworthy in a World-Herald story.

“He’s not a screamer. He doesn’t pound the table,” Kerrey said at the time. “But whatever he tells you he’s going to do, he’ll do.”

Kerrey added that when he served as Nebraska governor, Barrett, then Speaker of the Legislature, was an important ally in overcoming a big budget deficit during the farm crisis of the 1980s.

Kerrey said that Barrett could have made political hay out of the state’s budget issues, and the painful budget cuts and tax increase that followed, but didn’t.

“He didn’t vote for everything. But he understood that some pretty drastic things had to happen, and he helped me out,” Kerrey said.

In 2000, Barrett cited growing frustration with partisanship on Capitol Hill as one of the main reasons he was retiring from Congress. Republicans had recently become the majority in the House, and led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, had become more aggressive, more partisan and less collaborative.

“He always said Washington was 10 square miles surrounded by reality,” said Bruce Rieker, a former deputy chief of staff who now works for the Nebraska Farm Bureau. “He never got Potomac fever.”

Finke, the former chief of staff, who is now retired in South Carolina, said that Barrett often told her that Nebraska “did it right” with its nonpartisan, one-house Unicameral Legislature.

Congress was a big contrast from the Nebraska Legislature, Barrett said in a 2000 interview, where elected officials were good friends.

“It’s part of an overall basket of reasons why it’s time for me to leave, “ he said. “I don’t have to put up with this.”