Haley Barbour

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Haley Barbour" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Haley Barbour
63rd Governor of Mississippi
In office January 13, 2004 – January 10, 2012
Lieutenant	Amy Tuck Phil Bryant
Preceded by	Ronnie Musgrove
Succeeded by	Phil Bryant
Chair of the Republican National Committee
In office January 29, 1993 – January 17, 1997
Preceded by	Richard Bond
Succeeded by	Jim Nicholson
White House Director of Political Affairs
In office June 17, 1986 – March 16, 1987 Serving with Mitch Daniels, Frank Donatelli
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Bill Lacy
Succeeded by	Frank Lavin
Personal details
Born	Haley Reeves Barbour (1947-10-22) October 22, 1947 (age 76) Yazoo City, Mississippi, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Marsha Dickson ​ (m. 1971)​
Education	University of Mississippi, Oxford (JD)
Signature

Haley Reeves Barbour^[1] (born October 22, 1947) is an American attorney, politician, and lobbyist who served as the 63rd governor of Mississippi from 2004 to 2012. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997.

Born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Barbour graduated from the University of Mississippi with undergraduate and law degrees, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.^{[citation needed]} Barbour was an active Republican operative during the 1970s and 1980s, and he is often credited with building significant Republican infrastructure in Mississippi during an era when it was still dominated by Southern Democrats.^[2] He was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 1982, but lost to incumbent Democrat John C. Stennis.

In 2003, Barbour became the second Republican governor of Mississippi since Reconstruction when he defeated Democratic incumbent Ronnie Musgrove. As governor he oversaw his state's responses to Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the state's two most damaging environmental disasters since the 1927 Mississippi River floods. Barbour was expected to be a candidate for president in 2012, but announced he would not run in April 2011.^[3]

Since retiring as governor, Barbour has resumed lobbying as a senior partner at BGR Group, which he co-founded in 1991. He has been described as "one of Washington's all-time mega-lobbyists".^[4] His clients have often included foreign governments, oil, and tobacco companies.^[5] Barbour currently co-chairs the Immigration Task Force at the Bipartisan Policy Center.