Author

Barbara Barrett
Barbara Barrett is the managing editor of Stateline. She previously worked as the national editor at McClatchy’s Washington bureau.
China Owns Little US Farmland, But Many Lawmakers Are Worried
By: Barbara Barrett - March 14, 2023
WASHINGTON — Nearly a third of states have laws prohibiting certain foreign businesses and governments from buying agricultural lands within their borders, and more states are looking to join them. The efforts in at least 11 states are pitched primarily by Republicans as another security front in the nation’s ongoing propaganda battles, primarily with China […]
Republicans Have Filed Dozens of Bills to Disrupt Transgender Youth Health Care
By: Barbara Barrett - February 9, 2023
Republican lawmakers in more than half the states are continuing a party-line push to restrict doctors and other medical providers from offering some gender-affirming health care to minors, even with parents’ consent. In late January, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, signed legislation making the Beehive State the first this year to ban some medical […]
Ranked Choice Voting Lifts Unexpected Hopeful in Alaska Election
By: Barbara Barrett - September 2, 2022
Ranked-choice voting, an increasingly popular elections system across the country, played heavily in the special congressional race that will send Alaska U.S. Rep.-elect Mary Peltola to Washington, D.C., this month. Wednesday night, Peltola, a Democrat, was ahead of Republican candidate Sarah Palin 40.2%-31.2% when the first votes were counted for the U.S. House special election. Republican […]
Governors Push New Gun Restrictions in Wake of Massacres
By: Barbara Barrett - May 27, 2022
Several governors and state lawmakers this week proposed additional restrictions on gun purchases, background checks and sales in the wake of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, this week and the slaying of 10 Black shoppers at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket last week. The suggestions, almost exclusively from Democrats, ranged from restricting firearm advertising […]
Climate Change in a Coastal County: Think Global, Act Hyperlocal
By: Barbara Barrett - July 26, 2019
NAGS HEAD, N.C. — Of all the communities across the United States wrestling with climate change, few face its effects day to day like the strand of coastal islands that make up Dare County. The county, strung mostly along a chain of narrow barrier islands jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, sits in the path of […]