MIKE BARRETT









                           GOVERNOR '94






                P.O. Box 2193, Cambridge, MA 02238
               (617) 623-9494, (617) 628-0940 (FAX)



              SEN. MICHAEL BARRETT ON WOMEN'S ISSUES

     Senator Michael Barrett is a Democratic candidate for 
governor.  He currently serves as Senate chair of the 
Legislature's Joint Committee on Health Care, and is also a 
member of the Committee on Education.

     Mike has been consistently pro-choice on the issue of 
abortion.  He is a cosponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act, and 
recently played a key strategic role in the state Senate in 
passing clinic access guarantees.  That bill was the first 
pro-choice legislation to pass the Senate in years.

     Mike has devoted much of his time in recent years to the 
problems of crime and violence, especially as they affect women.  
In 1992, Mike wrote and successfully sponsored the state's 
domestic violence registry law, which requires that state 
criminal record systems be networked and that judges check on 
abusers' past histories when ruling on requests for restraining 
orders.  The legislation was hailed in the Washington Post as "a 
nationwide first."  Currently Mike is working to fill in 
remaining gaps in the information systems intended to protect 
victims of violence.

     Year after year Mike has won budget amendments to increase 
state funding of pregnancy counseling and family planning 
programs.  In 1992 he was honored by the Mass. Family Planning 
Association for his work in this area.

     Mike has consistently received high ratings from the 
Massachusetts Human Services Coalition.  He launched the 
Caregivers Campaign to address the shortage of workers in the 
human services field and has co-sponsored the Child Care Linkage 
bill.

     Mike has worked hard on human and civil rights.  He served 
as chief Senate sponsor of the gay civil rights bill, which bars 
discrimination in housing and employment on the basis of sexual 
orientation.  The bill was signed into law in 1989 after a 
monumental seventeen-year battle.  Afterwards the Civil Liberties 
Union of Massachusetts credited Mike with "great courage and 
independence" and "enormous political skill" for leading the 
fight for passage in the Senate.