Barrasso, John Anthony (1952-…), a Republican from Wyoming, has been a member of the United States Senate since 2007. He was appointed to the Senate following the death of Senator Craig Thomas. Barrasso later won election to full terms in the Senate. Prior to his 2007 appointment, Barrasso, a surgeon, had served in the Wyoming State Senate.
Barrasso was born on July 21, 1952, in Reading, Pennsylvania. At Georgetown University, he received a B.S. degree in 1974 and an M.D. degree in 1978. After graduation, Barrasso served as a surgery resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. In 1983, he moved to Wyoming and worked as an orthopedic surgeon in Casper. In addition to his career as a surgeon, Barrasso appeared on television as a medical commentator and wrote a newspaper health column.
In 1996, Barrasso ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. senator. He won election to the Wyoming Senate in 2002 and later became chairman of the state transportation, highways, and military affairs committee. He was reelected to the state Senate in 2006. In June 2007, Barrasso was appointed to the U.S. Senate following the death of Senator Thomas earlier that month. In 2008, Barrasso won a special election to serve until the end of Thomas’s term in 2013. Barrasso was elected to his first full term in the Senate in 2012, and he was reelected in 2018. Barrasso, who has described himself as a conservative, is a long-time opponent of legalized abortion and measures to regulate gun ownership. He has supported lower taxes, limited government, and a strong national defense. In Wyoming, he supported measures to improve rural health care services.
