Haley Barbour
Co-Chair, Immigration Task Force; Former Governor of Mississippi
Haley Barbour co-chairs BPC’s Immigration Task Force. Barbour, founding partner of BGR Group, returned to BGR in January 2012 after serving two consecutive terms as governor of Mississippi. At BGR, he heads advocacy coalitions, lobbies on behalf of his clients, and remains a major force in Republican party politics and elections.
Barbour began his political career in 1968, dropping out of college to work on Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign. After initially supporting Ronald Reagan for the GOP nomination in 1976, he ran Gerald Ford’s fall campaign in the southeastern United States. He later served as political director of the Reagan White House. From 1993 to 1997, Barbour served as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Barbour received national recognition from the bipartisan American Legislative Exchange Council for his swift response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In 2015, he published America’s Great Storm: Leading Through Hurricane Katrina. For his efforts to rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he received the Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award.
A native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, Barbour attended the University of Mississippi where he received his JD in 1973.