Gregory John Barro, known as Greg Barro (born 1957), is an attorney in Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

, Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, who served as a Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 member of the Louisiana State Senate

Louisiana State Legislature

The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...

 from 1992 to 1996. He represented District 37, which covers parts of Caddo

Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Caddo Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Shreveport; as of 2000, the population was 252,161...

 and Bossier

Bossier Parish, Louisiana

Bossier Parish is named for Pierre Bossier, a 19th-century Louisiana state senator and U.S. representative from Natchitoches Parish.Bossier Parish was spared fighting on its soil during the American Civil War...

 parishes the far northwestern portion of the state.

In 1987, Barro nearly unseated Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 State Representative

Louisiana State Legislature

The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...

 Art Sour

Art Sour

Arthur William Sour, Jr., known as Art Sour , was a Shreveport businessman and a pioneer in developing a competitive Republican Party in Louisiana. A conservative, Sour served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972-1992. He was born in Shreveport to Arthur W. Sour and Adele Sour . He...

 in District 6. On November 16, 1991, Barro won his Senate seat in the same election in which the Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards defeated former Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

sman David Duke

David Duke

David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in...

 for governor of Louisiana. Duke ran as a Republcian without official party support. The incumbent Democratic state senator Sydney B. Nelson

Sydney B. Nelson

Sydney Banks Nelson is a retired attorney in Shreveport, Louisiana, who served from 1980 to 1992 as a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate, representing District 37 .-Early years:...

, a Shreveport lawyer, did not seek a fourth term.

Barro defeated Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 Ronald Bradford "Ron" Fayard (1946–2011), a 1964 graduate of Bossier High School and a Realtor from Bossier City

Bossier City, Louisiana

Bossier City is a city in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, United States.As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of 61,315. Bossier City is closely tied to its larger sister city Shreveport, located on the western bank of the Red River. The Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area is the...

, 59-41 percent. In 1995, Barro ran a strong third in the nonpartisan blanket primary but lost a general election

General election

In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

 berth to another Democrat, Melissa Flournoy, a state representative

Louisiana State Legislature

The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...

 who was in turn handily defeated by the Republican Max T. Malone

Max T. Malone

Max Tatum Malone is the president of Malone Oil and Gas Exploration Company in Shreveport and a former Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate, in which he served from 1996 until January 14, 2008...

 of Shreveport.

Barro graduated from Captain Shreve High School in Shreveport, where one of his classmates was future Shreveport Mayor

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 Keith Hightower

Keith Hightower

Keith Paul Hightower is a businessman who is the former Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana.Hightower graduated from Captain Shreve High School in 1975; one of his classmates was later State Senator Greg Barro, a Shreveport lawyer. Hightower then graduated in 1979 from Louisiana Tech...

. Barro received his Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree from Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...

 in Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

, and procured his legal degree from the LSU Law Center.