Philip E. Baruth (born February 10, 1962) is an American politician, novelist, biographer, professor, and former radio commentator from Vermont.

[6] Baruth began his public service career as a member of the Burlington Board of School Commissioners.

He first proposed an assault weapons ban in 2013 as Majority Leader[8] and later supported a comprehensive background check bill in 2015.

[9][10] In 2018, following the Parkland mass shooting and a foiled plot at Fair Haven Union High School in Vermont, Baruth's Universal Background Checks language became the nucleus of a comprehensive gun safety bill S55, a bill then signed by Republican governor Phil Scott on the steps of the Vermont statehouse.

He was the driving force in the Senate behind the passage of the 2016 Paid Sick Leave bill, in recognition of which he was named Legislator of the Year by the Main Street Alliance of Vermont.

[11][12] On Education, he was one of the drafters of Act 77, which created Vermont's dual enrollment, early college, and personalized learning plan programs.

[13] Baruth is the author of four novels and more than a dozen published short stories, as well as screenplays, radio commentaries, and works of scholarship.

Baruth's book-length biography of long-serving U.S. senator Patrick Leahy was published in 2017 by University Press of New England.

From 2006 to 2012 he provided weekly commentary on national and state politics for Air America (in Brattleboro)/WKVT-FM "Live & Local."

He wrote the Introduction to And Now, Michiana Chronicles (South Bend IN: Wolfson Press, 2008), a collection of selected commentaries aired by WVPE (88.1 FM) in the Michigan/Indiana region.