The Fortunate 500: Politics and law stars

People who power the political and legal social scenes

By Ricardo Gándara
May 12, 2005

Photo by Deborah Cannon/AA-S GONZALO BARRIENTOS politics/business/charity
THE FORTUNATE 500
All stars	Art stars
Music stars	Education/Charity stars
Food stars	Literary/Media stars
Heritage stars	Film stars
Business/High Tech stars	Politics/Law stars
Sports stars	Fashion stars
Part-time Austinites

State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos doesn't mind. The quinceañeras, the rosaries, the scholarship fund-raisers. Just about every day, the 30-year veteran of the Texas Legislature is invited to four or five after-work social gatherings.

"I am a social animal. I love being around people," he says.

Politics demands it. Shaking hands. Meeting people. Attending an event for a good cause. Barrientos, D-Austin, flourishes in the elbow-rubbing atmosphere.

"They give me fuel," he says of social events. "They invigorate me."

He's been at it a long time. His first events were boycotts and civil rights and anti-Vietnam War marches, which laid the foundation for being around people with similar interests. It was easy to socialize, because there was passion and cause behind the events.

Early on, he became an organizer for the National Urban League and a trainer for VISTA, the national volunteer organization. Once his political career began in the Texas House in the mid-1970s, attending events became an extension of his job. "What I enjoy doing (social events ) turned out to be a natural for me, especially campaigning if you don't have the money," he says.

The drawback? Too much going on. Pulling a notepad from his coat pocket, he lists his social calendar for the day. There's a get-together for a Senate fellowship group, a scholarship fund-raiser, the Texas Aguila Awards Gala and an event at the Mexic-Arte Museum. "You can't make them all so I send my regrets," he says.

But the events he can attend, he embraces. "It's seeing the people you know. Catching up with everything and being part of an effort to help a particular cause," he says.

The result is a contribution to the social fabric of a city that prides itself on listening to new ideas from a diversity of groups including the young and the old. "You see people that are into everything like music, the Cap 10 race, the Martin Luther King March and the dieciséis de Septiembre. It all melds into a fabric that is progressive. That's Austin," he says.

Just don't ask him to attend a dinner. "I could do a dinner every night, but I don't like them. But, if it's a good steak and the speaker is dazzling, it's OK."

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