Barbara Layton is a Republican member of the House of Representatives, representing North Carolina. She serves on the House Reform Committee, and though she has no opinion on the arts or sciences, she has worked to dismantle the National Endowment for the Arts and National Institutes of Health.
She works with Congressman Bentley to target Ellie Bartlet's professor Dr. Lewis Foy and several other scientists for their work, which she considers immoral as well as a waste of taxpayers' money, in order to discredit the Bartlet Administration by proxy. The White House initially believes she got her list of scientists to target from the Traditional Values Alliance, a right-wing political action committee, but she denies it and they realize her information is too recent for the TVA to know about it.
Toby Ziegler figures out that Will Bailey had the updated list, which he was using in his research for Vice President Russell's presidential campaign. Russell's wife gave it to Layton, with whom she served on the board of a breast cancer foundation. Russell dismisses Will's concerns about the leak, suggesting he knew about his wife's actions from the beginning.