Barr announces run for Congress

By Beth Musgrave - bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A former staffer of Gov. Ernie Fletcher announced Tuesday that he will seek the Republican nomination for the 6th Congressional District seat.

Garland “Andy” Barr, 36, promised a group of supporters at a Lexington hotel on Tuesday that he would bring fiscal conservative values to Washington D.C. if elected in November 2010.

“The American people deserve better,” Barr said. “They want leaders that will stop spending money that we don’t have.”

The Lexington lawyer is the first Republican to formerly announce his candidacy for the seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles. Barr formed an exploratory committee in September and had raised more than $185,000 by the end of September.Matt Lockett, a Nicholasville Republican, has also expressed interest in running for the position.

In his speech on Tuesday at the Hyatt Hotel, Barr hit on common conservative themes of less government, less debt and more fiscally responsible spending in Washington D.C.

Barr said he is against the current plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, calling it too costly. Barr said he would vote against it because it was wrong “not just when political expediency’s requires it,” a reference to Chandler. Chandler, an early supporter of President Barack Obama, broke ranks with Democrats and voted against the health care bill on Saturday.

Much of Fletcher’s four-year tenure was marred by a political hiring scandal. Several key members of the Fletcher administration were indicted for violating the state’s hiring laws. They were later pardoned by Fletcher. Barr was never implicated or charged in the scandal and said on Tuesday that he plans to stand by his record if the Democrats or a Republican challenger tries to use the Fletcher hiring scandal against him.

“I am proud of my service,” Barr said. “I was the voice of compliance within the administration.”

Barr also noted that he worked for Gov. Steve Beshear before he worked for Fletcher at Stites & Harbison, a law firm. It was Beshear that convinced Barr to go to Frankfort, Barr said Tuesday.

Barr graduated from Henry Clay High School in 1992 and the University of Virginia in 1996. He received his law degree from the University of Kentucky. Barr was a legislative assistant for U.S. Rep. Jim Talent, R-MO, from 1996 to 1998.

After leaving state government when Fletcher was defeated in November 2007, Barr returned to private practice and is currently a lawyer with Kinkead & Stilz. He is also a part-time instructor at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches constitutional law.