Representative Harry Stephen Bartlett

Harry Stephen Bartlett (born September 19, 1947) is an American politician and business association executive who served as a Republican U.S. Representative from Texas and later as mayor of Dallas, Texas, before becoming president and chief executive officer of the Financial Services Roundtable. Over the course of his public career, he served as the U.S. representative for Texas’s 3rd congressional district, as the 55th mayor of Dallas, and as a member of the Dallas City Council, and he subsequently emerged as a prominent advocate on financial services legislation at the national level.

Bartlett was born in Los Angeles, California, and was reared in Lockhart in Caldwell County, Texas. His family later moved to Dallas, where he attended Justin F. Kimball High School. While in high school, he became active in Republican politics and met his future wife, Gail Coke, at a Young Republicans bake sale. He graduated from Kimball High School in 1966. Bartlett went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied liberal arts and became a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas in 1971, laying the academic foundation for his subsequent career in business and public service.

Following his graduation, Bartlett entered the private sector and became involved in civic and political activities in the Dallas area. His early engagement in local Republican politics and community affairs led to his election to the Dallas City Council, where he gained experience in municipal governance, budgeting, and urban policy. His work on the council helped establish his reputation as a reform-minded, business-oriented public official and positioned him for higher office within the rapidly growing and increasingly Republican-leaning suburbs of North Texas.

Bartlett was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas’s 3rd congressional district in 1982 and took office on January 3, 1983. He won the open seat over former state Representative Kay Bailey Hutchison, who later became Texas state treasurer and a United States senator. The position had become vacant when long-term Republican incumbent James M. Collins left the House to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Bartlett served five terms in Congress, holding the seat from 1983 until his resignation in 1991. During this period, he represented a rapidly developing suburban district north of Dallas and participated in the legislative process during a significant era in American politics, including the latter years of the Reagan administration and the presidency of George H. W. Bush.

While in Congress, Bartlett served on the House Banking Committee, where he played a notable role in financial and housing policy. He led the successful push to allow market forces to set interest rates on government‑insured mortgages, a change intended to modernize and deregulate aspects of the housing finance system. He served as a Deputy Whip in the House Republican leadership and was a sponsor or principal cosponsor of nearly twenty major pieces of legislation. Among the measures with which he was prominently associated were the Enhanced Secondary Mortgage Market Act, reforms to the Fair Labor Standards Act, legislation related to Federal Housing Administration (FHA) deregulation, and the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. His congressional tenure was marked by a focus on economic policy, regulatory reform, and support for business and housing markets, while he continued to represent the interests of his North Texas constituents.

In 1991, Bartlett resigned from Congress to pursue municipal executive office. He ran for mayor of Dallas in a nonpartisan election and, on November 5, 1991, was elected as the city’s 55th mayor with 54 percent of the vote. He was sworn into office on December 2, 1991, and served as mayor until 1995. As mayor, Bartlett led efforts to reduce violent crime and championed a $5 billion capital improvements plan aimed at upgrading infrastructure and supporting long‑term growth. His administration emphasized economic revitalization, including a downtown renaissance and the development of approximately 30,000 new residential units in or adjacent to downtown Dallas. Under his leadership, the city pursued policies intended to attract investment, expand the tax base, and strengthen Dallas’s position as a regional economic center.

After leaving the mayor’s office, Bartlett moved into national‑level advocacy for the financial services industry. In 1999 he was hired as president and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable, an influential Washington‑based advocacy group representing large integrated financial institutions and lobbying the federal government on banking, insurance, securities, and related regulatory issues. He held this position from 1999 to 2012, during a period that encompassed significant changes in financial regulation and the global financial crisis. In 2011, it was reported that Bartlett earned about $2 million per year in this role. In 2012 he was succeeded as president and CEO by former Minnesota governor and Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty.

Parallel to his executive responsibilities, Bartlett served on a wide range of corporate and nonprofit boards. His board service included IMCO Recycling, Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation, Sun Coast Industrial, and the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington. He also served on the board of governors of the National YMCA, the Fannie Mae National Advisory Council, and the board of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. In 2001 he was appointed to the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education, reflecting his interest in education and disability policy. He later became chairman of the board of directors of RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing opportunities for people with disabilities. In addition, Bartlett has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and as a member of the Leadership Group on U.S.–Muslim Engagement, contributing his experience in public policy and governance to academic and civic initiatives.

Over the course of his career, Bartlett has received recognition from a broad array of organizations for his leadership and public service. He has been honored by the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Texas Association for Retarded Citizens, the Anti‑Defamation League, the National Council of La Raza, the American Electronics Association, and the watchdog group Watchdogs of the Treasury. He has also been recognized by Ebony, Essence, and Jet magazines, reflecting his engagement with issues of diversity and inclusion, and was named “Best Dad” by the NF Foundation. These honors underscore the breadth of his involvement in economic, social, and civil rights issues.

In later years, Bartlett remained active in public affairs and national political discourse. On August 24, 2020, during the opening day of the Republican National Convention, he was one of 24 former Republican lawmakers to endorse Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, signaling his concern about the direction of his party and the country. Following the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he joined 30 other former Republican members of Congress in calling on their former colleagues to pass articles of impeachment against outgoing President Donald Trump. These actions reflected his continued engagement with questions of constitutional governance and the rule of law. Bartlett is married to the former Gail Coke; the couple has three children and six grandchildren and resides in McLean, Virginia.