Barney Frank (born March 31, 1940) is the United States House Representative for MA's 4th congressional district since 1981. In 1982 he won his first full term and has been re-elected ever since by wide margins. In 1987, he became the second openly gay member of the House of Representatives, and has become one of the most prominent LGBT politicians in the United States.
In 2007 Frank became the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee when the Democratic Party won a majority in the House. The committee oversees the entire financial services industry, including the securities, insurance, banking and housing industries.
Frank is widely considered to be one of the most powerful members of Congress. He has been described as "one of the brightest and most energetic defenders of civil rights issues".
Frank was born Barnett Frank to a Jewish family in Bayonne, NJ, one of four children of Sam and Elsie. Frank's father ran a Jersey City truck stop—a place Frank describes as "totally corrupt"—and served a year in prison, when Frank was 7, for refusing to testify to a grand jury against Frank's uncle.
Frank was educated at Harvard College, graduating in 1962. Frank's undergraduate studies were interrupted by the death of his father, and Frank took a year off to help resolve the family's affairs prior to his graduation. He taught undergraduates at Harvard while studying for a Ph.D., but left in 1968 before completing the degree, to become Boston mayor Kevin White's Chief Assistant, a position he held for three years. He then served for a year as Administrative Assistant to Congressman Michael J. Harrington. Frank later graduated from Harvard Law School, in 1977, while serving as Massachusetts State Representative.
In 1972 Frank was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he served for eight years. While in state and local government, Frank taught part time at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Boston University. He published numerous articles on politics and public affairs, and in 1992 he published Speaking Frankly, an essay on the role the Democratic Party should play in the 1990s.
In 1979, Frank was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts. A year later, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 4th congressional district, hoping to succeed Father Robert Drinan, who had left Congress following a call by Pope John Paul II for priests to withdraw from political positions. In the Democratic primary held on September 16, 1980, Frank won 51.3 percent of the vote in a four-candidate field. His nearest opponent, Arthur J. Clark, won 45.9 percent and finished almost 4,500 votes behind. As the Democratic nominee, Frank faced Republican Richard A. Jones in the general election and won narrowly, 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent.
For his first term, Frank represented a district in the western and southern suburbs of Boston. However, in 1982, redistricting forced him to run against Republican Margaret Heckler, who represented a district centered on the South Coast. Although the newly configured district retained Frank's district number — the 4th — it was geographically more Heckler's district. Frank focused on Heckler's initial support for President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts, and won by 20 percentage points. He has not faced credible opposition since, and has been reelected thirteen times.
Frank is known for his witty, self-deprecating sense of humor. He once famously quipped that he was unable to complete his review of the Starr Report detailing President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, complaining that it was "too much reading about heterosexual sex". In 2004 and again in 2006, a survey of Capitol Hill staffers published in Washingtonian gave Frank the title of the "brainiest", "funniest", and "most eloquent" member of the House.
A 1990 investigation by the House Ethics Committee was prompted by Steve Gobie, a male hustler Frank befriended and housed, who attempted to profit on his allegations that Frank knew he was using the home to see clients. Frank confirmed that he had once paid Gobie for sex, hired him with personal funds as an aide and wrote letters on congressional stationery on his behalf to Virginia state probation officials, but Frank said he fired Gobie when he learned that prostitution clients were visiting his apartment. "Two years [after Frank fired Gobie], Gobie tried unsuccessfully to sell his story to the Washington Post. He then gave the story to the Washington Times for nothing, in hopes of getting a book contract for the male version of Mayflower Madam." After the investigation, the Committee found no evidence that Frank had known of or been involved in the alleged illegal activity and dismissed all of Gobie's more scandalous claims; they recommended a reprimand for Frank using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. The House voted 408-18 to reprimand Frank. The attempts to censure and expel Frank were led by Republican Larry Craig, whom Frank criticized for hypocrisy after Craig's own later arrest for soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom. Frank won re-election that year with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.
LGBT issues
Frank has been outspoken on many civil rights issues, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. In 1987, he publicly came out as gay. He said in a 1996 interview: "I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority." In 1995, then-Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey famously referred to Frank as "Barney Fag" in a press interview. Armey apologized and said it was "a slip of the tongue". Frank did not accept Armey's explanation, saying "I turned to my own expert, my mother, who reports that in 59 years of marriage, no one ever introduced her as Elsie Fag."
Through the 1990 Immigration Act, Frank was a major force in removing restrictions based on "sexual preference exclusion" which had been explicitly prohibited by early immigration law. In 1998, Frank founded the National Stonewall Democrats, the national LGBT Democratic organization. In February 2009, Frank was one of three openly gay members of Congress, along with Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jared Polis of Colorado.
Frank was accused by Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) of having a "radical homosexual agenda"; Frank responded "I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of LGBT people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform."
Frank's stance on outing gay Republicans has been called the "Frank Rule" whereby a closeted person who uses their power, position, or notoriety to hurt LGBT people can be outed. The issue became relevant during the Mark Foley scandal of 2006, during which Frank clarified his position on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher: "I think there's a right to privacy. But the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. And people who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door and do it themselves."
In April 2009 he was named in Out magazine's "Annual Power 50 List", landing at number 1.
ENDA 2007 controversy
In Barney's own words-
When the bill banning sexual orientation discrimination was first introduced by Bella Abzug and Paul Tsongas more than thirty years ago, it was a remote hope. Over time because of a good deal of work, education of the general public, and particularly the decision by tens of millions of gay and lesbian people over that time to be honest about our sexual orientation, we have finally reached the point where we have a majority in the House ready to pass this bill. Those of us who are sponsoring it had hoped that we could also include in the prohibition discrimination based on gender identity. This is a fairly recent addition to the fight, and part of the problem we face is that while there have been literally decades of education of the public about the unfairness of sexual orientation discrimination and the inaccuracy of the myths that perpetuated it, our educational efforts regarding gender identity are much less far along, and given the prejudices that exist, face a steeper climb.
We introduced legislation opposing sexual orientation discrimination with explicit inclusion of gender identity for the first time this year. Earlier this session under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, we were able to get through the House a hate crimes bill that provided protection against crimes of violence and property damage for lesbian, gay and bisexual people and people who are transgender. There was some initial resistance to the inclusion of transgender people but a very organized effort on the part of Congresswoman Baldwin, who took a major role in this, myself, and the Democratic leadership allowed us to overcome it, with the support of some of our Republican colleagues.
We then began the work on passing a transgender inclusive ENDA. I was optimistic at first that we could do this, although I knew it would be hard. One of the problems I have found over the years of discussing this is an unwillingness on the part of many, including leaders in the transgender community, to acknowledge a fact: namely that there is more resistance to protection for people who are transgender than for people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual. This is not a good fact, but ignoring bad facts is a bad way to get legislation passed. I have for some time been concerned that people in the transgender leadership were underestimating the difficulty we faced in a broadly inclusive bill being adopted.
Still this seemed to me an effort very worth trying, and, when I testified before the Education and Labor Committee on ENDA I spent much of my time explicitly addressing the need to include transgender people. In fact, I believe I spent more time on that than any other witness. Sadly, as the time approached for the vote to be taken in the Committee, we encountered a good deal of resistance. The great majority of Democrats remained committed to this, but with Republicans overwhelmingly likely to be opposed – even on hate crimes on the critical vote we were able to retain only nine Republican supporters out of two hundred Republican Members – it became clear that an amendment offered by Republicans either to omit the transgender provision altogether or severely restrict it in very obnoxious ways would pass.
Responding thoughtfully to this requires people to accept facts. Some have tried to deny this unpleasant reality. The Democratic leadership, which is in complete sympathy with a fully inclusive bill, did a special official Whip count – a poll of the Members. There had been earlier informal counts that had showed significant support for a bill that included transgender, although even these informal checks never showed that we had a majority. But Members will sometimes be inclined to give people the answers they think the people who are asking the questions want until the crunch comes. In the crunch – the official Whip count taken in contemplation of the bill – it became very clear that while we would retain a significant majority of Democrats, we would lose enough so that a bill that included transgender protection would lose if not amended, and that an anti-transgender amendment would pass.
The question then became how to proceed. There were several choices. One was to go forward with the bill understanding that an amendment would be offered to strike the transgender provision. There was a proposal to have the Democratic leadership do that in what is known as a manager’s amendment, in the hopes of avoiding a divisive roll call on the subject. But the Democratic leadership did not want to take the lead in killing a provision to which its Members are committed as a matter of principle, and in fact, given Congressional procedures, there is no way to prevent a roll call even on that. People have claimed that the desire to avoid a roll call is aimed solely at protecting some Democrats from having to make a tough choice. That is of course a factor, and asking your supporters to vote with you on a matter that is doomed both to lose itself and to lose you votes is not a good way to build up support. But it is also the case that a number of the Democrats were prepared to vote for the inclusion of the transgender provision even though they knew that it would hurt them politically. The main reason not to put this to a vote is our interest in ultimately adopting transgender protection. If we were to push for a vote now, knowing that the transgender provision would be defeated by a majority, we would be making it harder ultimately to win that support. As recent campaigns indicate, Members of Congress who are accused of switching their position on votes are pilloried, even when this is done unfairly as it was to Senator Kerry. Thus, forcing a vote on transgender inclusion now, which would without any question result in a majority against it, would make it harder to win when we have done better in our educational work, because Members who vote no now will be harder to persuade to switch their votes than to persuade them to vote yes in the first instance.
In addition, going forward in this situation leaves us open to Republican procedural maneuvers in which they could succeed not only in getting rid of the transgender provision. This would not kill the bill, but it would substantially delay it, and would be have very bad psychological effect in a situation in which maintaining the right psychology –optimism – is important.
That is why I believe that a strategy of going forward with a transgender inclusive provision that would certainly be stricken at some point in the procedure by a vote in the House would be a mistake.
Leaders in the GLBT community, who strongly support the inclusion of transgender, now acknowledge that this would be the case – namely that the transgender provision would lose – so their proposed alternative was simply to withhold the bill from the House altogether.
That is, their recommendation was that the Speaker simply announce that she was not going to allow the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to come up at all. I believe that would be a disaster – politically, morally, and strategically. While their reason for this would be the debate over how ultimately to achieve transgender inclusion, the impression that would be given to the country was that Speaker Pelosi, the first Democratic Speaker in thirteen years, and a lifelong strong supporter of LGBT rights, had decided that we could not go forward on what had been the major single legislative goal of gay and lesbian people for over thirty years.
Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO) today held a press conference to announce the introduction of the 2009 Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The legislation would extend federal employment laws, which currently prevent job discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, age, and disability, to also cover sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill covers both the public and private sectors.
Just for fun-
Sponsored legislation related to GLBT issues-
- H.R.2981 : To prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sponsor: Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] (introduced 6/19/2009) Cosponsors (10)
Committees: House Education and Labor; House Administration; House Oversight and Government Reform; House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 7/23/2009 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.
- H.R.3017 : To prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sponsor: Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] (introduced 6/24/2009) Cosponsors (154)
Committees: House Education and Labor; House Administration; House Oversight and Government Reform; House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 6/24/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Education and Labor, and in addition to the Committees on House Administration, Oversight and Government Reform, and the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Co-sponsored legislation related to GLBT issues-
- H.CON.RES.52 : Honoring and remembering the life of Lawrence "Larry" King.
Sponsor: Rep Capps, Lois [CA-23] (introduced 2/12/2009) Cosponsors (14)
Committees: House Education and Labor
Latest Major Action: 3/30/2009 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities.
- H.CON.RES.92 : Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Day of Silence in bringing attention to anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender name-calling, bullying, and harassment faced by individuals in schools.
Sponsor: Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] (introduced 4/1/2009) Cosponsors (37)
Committees: House Education and Labor; House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 5/14/2009 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.
- H.CON.RES.137 : Expressing the sense of the Congress that the lack of adequate housing must be addressed as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment, and care, and that the United States should make a commitment to providing adequate funding for developing housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic.
Sponsor: Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] (introduced 6/2/2009) Cosponsors (18)
Committees: House Financial Services
Latest Major Action: 6/2/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
- H.RES.308 : Honoring the life, legacy, and memory of Pedro Pablo Zamora y Diaz, an extraordinary educator and activist, and a pioneer in the battle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Sponsor: Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] (introduced 3/31/2009) Cosponsors (28)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: 3/31/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
- H.RES.433 : Recognizing the 40th anniversary of Stonewall.
Sponsor: Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] (introduced 5/13/2009) Cosponsors (43)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 8/19/2009 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.
- H.R.179 : To permit the use of Federal funds for syringe exchange programs for purposes of reducing the transmission of bloodborne pathogens, including HIV and viral hepatitis.
Sponsor: Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (116)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
- H.R.1429 : To provide for an effective HIV/AIDS program in Federal prisons.
Sponsor: Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35] (introduced 3/11/2009) Cosponsors (19)
Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 3/18/2009 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
- H.R.1913 : To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 4/2/2009) Cosponsors (120)
Committees: House Judiciary; Senate Judiciary
House Reports: 111-86, 111-86 Part 2
Latest Major Action: 4/30/2009 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
- H.R.2132 : To amend the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 to permit leave to care for a same-sex spouse, domestic partner, parent-in-law, adult child, sibling, or grandparent who has a serious health condition.
Sponsor: Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] (introduced 4/28/2009) Cosponsors (18)
Committees: House Education and Labor; House Administration; House Oversight and Government Reform
Latest Major Action: 6/26/2009 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Post Office, and the District of Columbia.
- H.R.2517 : To provide certain benefits to domestic partners of Federal employees.
Sponsor: Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] (introduced 5/20/2009) Cosponsors (118)
Committees: House Oversight and Government Reform; House Administration; House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 7/30/2009 House committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 5 - 3 .