Barney Frank, former U.S. Congressman
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
FormerU.S.RepresentativeBarney Frank, a quick-witted Democrat who gave his name to a landmark financial reform bill after the economic crisis of 2007-2009, has died, his sister Ann Lewis said on Wednesday. He was 86.
One of the best-known gay politicians of his time, Frank served for over 30 years in theU.S. House of Representativesas a member fromMassachusettsand a liberal who gladly worked withRepublicans.
“He’s a guy you can sit down and deal with,” Republican RepresentativeTom ColefromOklahomasaid in 2011, when Frank chaired the House Financial Services Committee.
Along with then SenatorChris Dodd, Frank spearheaded 2010 legislation that tightened banking regulations and consumer protections to avoid a repeat of the 2007 financial crash and subsequent Great Recession.
Known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the law led to new rules on the previously unregulated off-exchange derivatives market, and set up theConsumer Financial Protection Bureauto shield consumers from predatory and abusive practices.
It was regarded as one of the main successes inCongressofBarack Obama’stwo-term presidency.
‘Things would have sucked worse without me’
As the financial crisis was unfolding and institutions such asLehman Brothersinvestment bank were collapsing, Frank was at the heart of congressional efforts to save theU.S.banking industry and limit the damage to the wider economy.
He shepherded the Treasury Department’s$700 billionTroubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bank bailout through the House in 2008.
The bailout stabilized the financial sector, with the government buying stock in eight major banks. By the time it ended in 2013, TARP had earned taxpayers a modest profit of$11 billionas the banks’ share prices recovered.
But it was criticized by someDemocratsfor not doing enough to help the crisis-bound housing market and for allowing bankers to receive large bonuses even as the market was crashing.
Frank defended his role in the bailout despite its flaws. “I actually had a slogan which … I was dissuaded from using, in 2010,” he told aC-SPANevent in 2014. “It said, ‘Things would have sucked worse without me.'”
A fast-talker with a rumpled appearance, Frank was frequently voted both the funniest and brainiest member ofCongressbyCapitol Hillstaffers in theWashingtonian magazine.
But his reputation as a banking regulation guru was called into question inMarch 2023when theNew York-based Signature Bank, of which Frank was a board member, collapsed along withSilicon Valley Bankand was seized by regulators.
First openly gay congressman
The grandson of Jewish immigrants fromEastern Europe,Barnett Frankwas born onMarch 31, 1940inBayonne, New Jersey. A high school debating star, he graduated fromHarvard Universityand started working for theBostonmayor’s office in the late 1960s before becoming an aide to a DemocraticU.S.congressman forMassachusetts.
In 1972, Frank ran for office himself, winning election as a Democrat to theMassachusettsstate House where the first bill he introduced was a groundbreaking attempt to ban anti-gay discrimination in housing and employment.
The bill failed but it was the start of Frank’s long career as a defender of liberal causes. He won election to theU.S. Housein 1980 and stayed there for 32 years.
Frank’s career was nearly sidelined by a 1989 scandal over his relationship with a male prostitute who became his housekeeper and driver and worked as an escort out of Frank’s home.
The House Ethics Committeeinvestigated Frank, ruling that he did not know about the prostitution at his house but recommending the full House reprimand him for using his congressional privileges to scrap dozens of the man’s parking tickets.
The scandal did little to affect voters’ support for Frank, who in 1987 had become the first congressman inU.S.history willingly to come out as gay.
Frank became the first sitting member ofCongressto marry a same-sex partner when he and Jim Ready got married in 2012.
Announcing his retirement fromCongressin 2013, Frank quipped that it would be a relief, because “I don’t even have to pretend to try to be nice to people I don’t like.”
About The Author
