Robert E. Barton

Robert Earl Barton, known as Bob Barton (born July 3, 1948), is an American politician. He is the first Republican to have served in the Louisiana House of Representatives for Bossier Parish since Reconstruction.

Robert Earl Barton was born on July 3, 1948, in Panama City, Florida.

Barton graduated from Bay High School in Panama City, Florida. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of West Florida at Pensacola and a master's degree from Florida State University in the capital city of Tallahassee.

Barton served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1973. He has been affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce and Lions International. He is Roman Catholic.

In 1986, while at the Ruston Daily Leader in Ruston in Lincoln Parish in North Louisiana, Barton purchased the weekly The Ouachita Citizen newspaper from Bert Hatten, a former mayor of West Monroe.

Barton also formerly owned and published the Bossier Press (since the Bossier Press-Tribune) in Bossier City. He is a past president of the Louisiana Press Association and held membership in the National Newspaper Association.

Political life

Barton held the District 8 seat from 1996 to 2000. The position opened when the 16-year incumbent, Robert Adley, ran for governor in the 1995 nonpartisan blanket primary. On October 21, 1995, Barton defeated the Democrat Bob G. Burford (1942–2009) in a low-turnout election, 5,416 votes (59.2 percent) to 3,740 (40.8 percent).

Burford served as an academic chairperson at Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City and as a two-term member of the Bossier Parish Police Jury prior to relocating in 1997 to Wilmington, North Carolina.

Barton did not seek reelection in the 1999 primary but instead unsuccessfully challenged Republican State Senator Max T. Malone of Shreveport. He finished in third place in a three-candidate field with 27.4 percent of the vote.

Fellow Republican Jane H. Smith, the former Bossier Parish school superintendent, won Barton's seat without opposition from either party in the 1999 primary. Smith has since been term-limited, and the House seat is held by the Republican lawyer Jeff R. Thompson of Bossier City. Adley is a term-limited member of the Louisiana State Senate from Bossier and Webster parishes, who is ineligible to run again in 2015.

During the late 1990s, Barton, like former opponent Bob Burford, was employed at Bossier Parish Community College in the role of assistant to the then chancellor, Tom Carleton. Barton was also a teacher from 1973 to 1978.

Barton and his wife Jane Susan Kohlhaas, reside in Benton, the seat of government of Bossier Parish located north of Bossier City.

He is Roman Catholic.