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.
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.
In October 2009, Barnes made headlines as the first woman to golf with the president during the administration. It was notable because critics had accused the Obama White House of being a "boys' club" after the president hosted a series of men-only basketball games.
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