WASHINGTON — Representative Barney Frank, who for more than two decades has been a member of the House committee charged with oversight of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, acknowledged yesterday that he recommended his live-in companion for a job at one of the housing agencies in the early 1990s at the same time Congress was writing legislation to improve oversight of the agency.
Frank confirmed an account of the hiring that appeared in a new book about the nation’s financial crisis by New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson. But he said his then-companion, Herb Moses, was qualified for the job and the hire did not shade his views as a lawmaker.
The Newton Democrat said he told a high-ranking administrator that Moses had the credentials for the position and would be a good choice. But he said he never asked anyone at the agency to take action.
“I never asked them to hire him,’’ Frank said in an interview yesterday, drawing a distinction between recommending him and specifically asking that Moses be hired.
At the time, Frank served on the Financial Services Committee, which was producing legislation to improve oversight of Fannie Mae. Frank eventually rose to chairman of the powerful committee in 2006. But he said that in 1991, his oversight responsibilities were minimal because he did not serve on the subcommittee drafting the oversight bill and because he was a relatively junior member of the committee.
Frank also said problems with subprime mortgages at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not occur until the early 2000s, long after Moses left the job at Fannie Mae in 1998, the year Frank and Moses split up.
In the new book, Frank recounts to Morgenson a conversation he had about Moses with the vice president of housing initiatives at Fannie Mae, Gerald R. McMurray, in 1991. Frank is quoted in the book saying that he told McMurray that Moses had been an economist with the Department of Agriculture and had received an MBA from Dartmouth.
“I talked to Jerry McMurray and said: ‘Herb’s a very good economist and has a business degree,’ ’’ Frank is quoted as saying.
Morgenson discussed Frank’s actions in a National Public Radio interview this week, and the issue was reported by the Boston Herald yesterday. Morgenson said in an interview with the Globe yesterday that the hire is an example of the cozy relationship that Fannie Mae executives had with lawmakers who were charged with overseeing them. She said she misspoke in telling the radio interviewer that Frank called Fannie Mae officials on Moses’ behalf; her book does not say Frank called anyone.
“I think what it was, was an example of the type of favors that Fannie Mae was happy to provide,’’ she said. Morgenson also reported in the book that Fannie Mae made sizable grants — $25,000 in 1994 and $50,000 in 2001 — to a Boston organization cofounded by Frank’s late mother and twice gave the group an award for its work in providing housing for the elderly. Frank said yesterday in an interview with the Globe that the grants to the organization, the Committee to End Elder Homelessness, did not influence his duties.
Frank said the conversation about Moses with McMurray came during a chance meeting at a Capitol Hill reception. Almost immediately afterward, an array of Fannie Mae executives interviewed Moses and hired him, according to Morgenson’s book.
Frank said he recalled only one time in the 1990s when Moses’ position affected his role on the Financial Services Committee, when the committee was considering a bill that would have affected executive salaries at Fannie Mae. He said he simply voted “present’’ — not for or against — and made a public statement at the time that his partner worked there and so he would not participate in the vote.
McMurray said yesterday in an interview that he did not know Moses was romantically involved with Frank when he picked out his application from a stack sent to him by the personnel department at Fannie Mae. He said Moses told him about the relationship during an interview later, and it had no impact on his decision to hire Moses. He said he would have hired him with or without his connection to Frank or the congressman’s recommendation.
“He turned out to be a terrific addition for us,’’ McMurray said. “Barney never called or pressured me in any way, shape, or form.’’
McMurray worked for the Financial Services Committee as a staff director on the subcommittee for housing and community development for more than 20 years before being hired at Fannie Mae in 1989. He has long been a supporter of Frank’s. The two knew each other when they attended Harvard University in the 1960s — Frank as a graduate student in political science and McMurray as an undergraduate. Campaign finance reports show he contributed $500 to Frank’s campaign account in 1995 and $500 in 2000.
Moses did not return a message left seeking comment.
Republicans tore into Frank in a statement yesterday, saying his actions “take shameless politics to a new low.’’
“The fact that Barney Frank didn’t see this as a conflict of interest is alarming by itself, but it’s so deceitful that it really shows voters that he’s not looking out for them in Washington,’’ said Tory Mazzola, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee.
Frank’s relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became a frequent flashpoint in his last election campaign. Frank’s opponent, Sean Bielat, repeatedly accused Frank of failing to properly oversee the mortgage agencies.
The Globe reported last fall that Frank, after becoming ranking member of the Financial Services Committee in 2003, missed warning signs that Fannie and Freddie were underwriting risky loans that could threaten their solvency. He told the Globe that he had been wearing ideological blinders — that he believed criticism of the agencies was motivated by partisanship and without merit.
Fannie and Freddie nearly collapsed in 2008, forcing the federal government to buy $150 billion worth of stock in the enterprises and $1.36 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities.
Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank caused a scene when he demanded a $1 senior discount on his ferry fare to Fire Island's popular gay haunt, The Pines, last Friday. Frank was turned down by ticket clerks at the dock in Sayville because he didn't have the required Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID. A witness reports, "Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation." Frank made news last year when he was spotted looking uncomfortable around a bevy of topless, well-built men at the Pines Annual Ascension Beach Party. Frank's spokesperson confirmed to Page Six that his partner, James Ready, asked the ticket office for a regular ticket for himself and a senior ticket for Frank, "but was turned down because Frank didn't have a resident ID."
Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank appeared
on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno Thursday night.
(CNN) - Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, known for
his unabashed bluntness, took aim at conservative radio and TV hosts
Thursday night and said the foundation for today's often ruthless
partisanship in Washington stems from the leadership of former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich.
In an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno Thursday, Frank
recalled the atmosphere in Washington during the early 1980s, a time he
said when political rivals President Reagan and House Speaker Tip
O'Neill would often joke that they were "friends after 5 p.m." But
Frank said the atmosphere markedly changed when Newt Gingrich became
Speaker of the House in 1994.
"A very self-described partisan came to office, Newt Gingrich became
the Speaker and he said, 'This is a mistake,'" he said. "That politics
gets muffled if you act as if it's just all people with good will
disagreeing. So they became angrier, we responded, Democrats to
Republicans."
Frank said that when angry and sometimes violent protesters took up
liberal causes such as Vietnam, "they didn't have mainstream media
people on the radio cheering them on."
"They didn't have people saying, 'You're right.' They didn't have TV
stations saying, 'Good for you, go throw another set of epithets.' And I
think that part of the problem is that the worst behavior these days
gets encouraged rather than discouraged."
Frank's message for today's protestors: "Rudeness is not a substitute
for thought."
Leno ran through some word association with Frank as well.
Sarah Palin? "Quitter."
Mitt Romney? "Flip-flopper."
John McCain? "Old."
McCain, 73, is less than four years older than Frank.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
CAGW Names Rep. Barney Frank 2009 Porker of the Year
WASHINGTON, Feb 02, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today announced the results of its online poll for the 2009 Porker of the Year. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, (D-Mass.) won with 49 percent of the vote. In second place was Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) with 26.3 percent. Third-place honors went to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) with 6.6 percent. Honorable mentions go out to Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) with 5.9 percent and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) with 5.5 percent. President Barack Obama was the overwhelming favorite in the write-in category, coming in just behind Rep. Abercrombie and ahead of last-place Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.
Chairman Frank garnered the lion's share of the votes as a result of his relentless and garrulous role in the failure of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage government-sponsored enterprises (GSE), which were taken into government conservatorship in September of 2008 after they began to collapse. The two GSEs, which own or guarantee half of the nation's $11 trillion home mortgages, have been on life support with $112 billion in taxpayer funds since then and taxpayers could be liable for trillions in bad loans on their balance sheets.
Among GSE defenders, Chairmen Frank is without peer. He safeguarded their lavish franchises and fended off any attempts to establish GSE oversight even when it became clear that GSE executives had manipulated earnings statements, given themselves huge bonuses based on bogus numbers, and steered the companies into such a precarious condition that they threatened the entire financial system. In one of his most outrageous statements, he told The New York Times on September 11, 2003 that the GSEs were "not facing any kind of financial crisis...[t]he more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." During a 2003 committee hearing, he casually announced that he didn't want "the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing."
In an astounding "Barney-Come-Lately" statement on January 22, 2010, Chairman Frank said that his committee will now recommend "abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance." Taxpayers should not hold their breath in the misguided belief that the Chairman has suddenly gotten religion on privatization. "The seeds of the GSE meltdown were sown by politicians like Barney Frank. He has no intention of giving up federal control over housing finance. Taxpayers can be certain that he is already cooking up a new and obscenely expensive scheme to permanently nationalize housing finance," said CAGW President Tom Schatz.
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Year is a dubious honor given to a lawmaker, government official, or political candidate who has shown the most blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers throughout the year.
SOURCE: Citizens Against Government Waste
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Barney Frank: Friend or Foe to Fannie and Freddie?
FOXBusiness
When U.S. Rep. Barney Frank announced last month his interest in possibly abolishing mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM: 1.02, 0.01, 0.99%) and Freddie Mac (FRE: 1.19, -0.01, -0.83%), it was a stunning reversal of his years-long support of the two mortgage associations.
For two decades, Frank championed the two agencies’ mission of increasing access to affordable housing and has been an unabashed defender of their role in the housing market.
Indeed, Frank has defended their fiscal stability repeatedly over the years.
In 2003, the Massachusetts Democrat famously dismissed the prospect of issues at the two government sponsored enterprises as they are known, calling them “fundamentally sound financially.” Later that same year during a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee on a proposal to develop a regulator for the GSEs, Frank stressed that he wanted the agencies to remain independent enough to continue their mission of providing affordable housing. He said the agencies posed no financial risk to the government, adding that rather than see them over regulated, he would rather they “roll the dice…towards subsidized housing.” In July 2008, Frank repeated those comments, advising that the two agencies were “fundamentally sound,” adding that while they had problems, “their prospects going forward are very solid.”
Fast forward a couple months and the two agencies were near collapse and being taken over by the federal government at a cost that has grown to more than $100 billion.
To many, Frank is the poster child - alongside mortgage brokers - for the plight of the housing market. So, why the sea change on the part of Frank, seen in some circles as the architect of the mortgage collapse because of his unabashed support for the agencies and their lax lending standards? Perhaps more importantly, can he still be trusted to lead the reworking of the two GSEs?
“It wasn’t just that he downplayed the risk; he created the risk,” said Charles Calomiris, a professor in Columbia Business School’s economics department and a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. “Fannie and Freddie had a huge exposure to subprime and alt-A mortgages, and that came from the initiatives that Barney Frank championed.”
His goal now, said several political analysts, is to distance himself from those policies, and abolishing the GSEs is a good first step.
“Rightly or wrongly, he has been made sort of the fall guy for the collapse because he was a supporter,” said Fred Bayles, director of the Boston University School of Communications statehouse reporting program. “I suppose he is looking for a little cover and he may also be looking at this in terms of the fact that times have changed and the mortgage world is a lot different than it used to be.”
Bayles said the recent upset election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate seat held for decades by Ted Kennedy has Frank and other Democrats rethinking their stance on several issues. Brown won the race in what was believed to be a backlash vote against several policies of the Obama administration.
“He changed his point about Fannie and Freddie and a cynical person would suggest that he is doing that because they are now the focus of at least some anger over the financial mess and specifically the mortgage problem,” Bayles said.
Richard Parker, a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center, part of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government said Frank’s reversal is likely the result of some political horse trading going on behind the scenes. Frank is smart enough to know the political winds have changed, so changing direction may be the best way to gather some political chits for the future.
“I think Barney is looking at them and thinking ‘we don’t have a political environment where we can get regulation. If I go to bat for these two and get them back up and running with $50 billion of federal funds and they tank again I’m ruined. If I agree to steady dismantling of them I’ve got some aces in my hand in this poker game,’” he said.
Others are more cynical in their assessment of Frank’s motives. In the wake of the financial crisis, Democrats have become the standard bearers of the financial reform movement. Efforts at reining in executive pay and proposals to tax Wall Street pay have garnered the party support from voters hammered by the crisis.
Frank’s move may be an effort to further tap into that angst, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and author of several books on the political process.
“One of the overriding political themes this year is populism, and the two parties are in a race to corner the populist market,” Sabato said in an e-mail. “To most people outside the Beltway, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac look like the very epitome of insider-dom, and thus they make a good target in 2010.”
No Sea Change?
A spokesman for the House Financial Services Committee, which Frank chairs, said the Congressman has pushed for and supported several efforts to reform the agencies, including one championed in 2005 by Rep. Mike Oxley (R-OH), who has said the Bush administration stood in his way. Franks voted to pass that bill through committee, but voted no on the House floor when the bill was amended. According to the spokesman, Frank has known since the crisis began that a change in structure was necessary.
“He has said many times that the current structure of Fannie and Freddie is not sustainable and we’ll have to take a look at the framework for housing finance going forward,” said spokesman Steve Adamske.
Asked to respond to reports that Frank has stood in the way of reform at the two mortgage agencies since as far back as 1992, including one in 2000 that Frank reportedly dismissed, saying there was “no federal liability there whatsoever," Adamske said Frank’s position has long been distorted by conservatives.
“It’s a conservative notion that he is the one who prevented the further regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that’s just not true,” he said.
Instead, Frank has pointed out that he spearheaded a 2007 effort at reform that was passed by the House.
But some of his colleagues in on the Financial Services Committee remember Frank’s stance on the two agencies differently. Rep. Scott Garrett, (R-NJ) said Frank’s recent statement is a 180-degree shift from the past.
“Having been there I know he has been one of the leaders of the opposition to true reform and certainly to dismantling the GSEs from day one,” Garrett said. “He is right when he says there has been Republican opposition too, but whether in the majority or the minority he was the point man in saying we should not go as far as myself and others have advocated. He has been saying no in committee and no on the floor.”
The problem Frank could face now, Calomiris said, is outrunning his years-long support of the GSEs long enough to lead his committee - and later the full House - to reform them.
"He can't really afford to attract much attention to himself on this because if he does there is a long list of quotes and actions that are embarrassing to him," Calomiris said. "He does not want this to be the topic of conversation for long.He wanted it on the record that he is for reform and now I think he wants to let that conversation sit for awhile."
Garrett said it remains to be seen whether Frank and the committee continue efforts to reform or abolish the GSEs or whether his recent comments were a smokescreen. In public comments, Frank has set no timeline for the abolishment of the agencies.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
DAVOS: Rep. Frank Urges Military Spending Cuts
Dow Jones Newswires
Davos, Switerland -(Dow Jones)- Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Wednesday said sustained and substantial reductions in U.S. military spending is a key way to reduce huge federal fiscal deficits.
Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum annual meeting here, Frank said the U.S. was engaged in two unnecessary wars while the previous administration, under Republican President George W Bush, instituted tax cuts.
He said the U.S. Pentagon shouldn't be the "fall back military of the world." The U.S. should scale back its global military aspirations.
Under questioning, Frank said cutting military spending wasn't enough to solve the deficit problem. He cited federal agricultural subsidies as another area that could be cut.
He said the inability to cut the federal deficit would result in a "devastation" of the government's ability to improve the quality of life of Americans.
House members returned from their recess over the holidays today, and health care legislation was the number issue on the agenda. The Senate race in Massachusetts, though, could change the dynamics of the debate, should GOP State Senator Scott Brown prevail next week. The Democrats risk losing their 60-seat filibuster proof majority with a Brown win.
However, while the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy has yet to be decided, the Brown campaign has already charged that Massachusetts Democrats will find a way to keep Mr. Brown from being certified, should he win, before the final vote on health care legislation happens in the Senate. Fox News spoke to Mr. Brown about his concern on this issue.:
"When I heard ... the machine, not only locally but nationally, is trying to manipulate the process and make sure that if I'm elected, a duly elected senator, I can't be seated in an effort to vote on this important piece of national legislation, it made me almost sick to my stomach," Brown said.
"Everything I've heard right now I don't like very much," said Massachusetts Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei, noting the secretary is signaling he will "drag his feet"
"That is the stupidest thing I've been asked in a long time. That is insane, the suggestion could only come from a demented right wing source," erupted Representative Barney Frank (D - MA), when asked by The Washington Times about what he thought of assertions that Massachusetts Democrats would stall the certification process should Mr. Brown win. "There isn't the slightest possibility of it happening---a way of doing it. That is conspiracy theory at its most contemptible."AUDIO
The Boston Herald reported that, according to a source, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin's office wants to certify the race on Feb. 20. A spokesman for Mr. Galvin's office explained that local election districts have to wait at least 10 days before they submit their returns, so military and overseas ballots can be tallied as well. 15 days is the maximum amount of time to submit the returns to the secretary's office, before they go to governor's office.
After the race is certified on the state level, the new Massachusetts Senator-elect would then have to be sworn in by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D - NV). An aid from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office sent an email to media saying the winner of the Massachusetts race would be sworn in promptly.:
"When there is a certified winner in Massachusetts, the Senate has received appropriate papers, and the vice president is available, the successor to Kennedy/Kirk will be sworn in."
The special election for the vacant Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat will happen on January 19.
Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest
Friday , October 03, 2008
By Bill Sammon
ADVERTISEMENT
WASHINGTON —
Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones
who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to
deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of
the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that
threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's
relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for
product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise
from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee,
which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that
they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however,
remain skeptical.
"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the
Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time
when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not
germane?
"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet
every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that
this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens
Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the
quintessential double standard."
A top GOP House aide agreed.
"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top
exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX
News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s
political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would
say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential
nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while
they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."
Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay
member of Congress.
"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses
wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always
introduces me as his lover."
The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in
1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie
Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives.
According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of
Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."
Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted
last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin,
Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages
throughout the private financial sector.
Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and
Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher
regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by
Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to
loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even
though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single
homes, respectively.
Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and
Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was
thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the
seeds of today’s economic crisis.
"I think the responsibility that the Democrats
have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the
Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and
tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said
recently.
Bill Sammon is FOX News' Washington Deputy Managing Editor.
Monday, Sep. 25, 1989
A Skeleton in Barney's Closet
By MARGARET CARLSON;Robert Ajemian/Boston and Hays
Gorey/Washington
Cases before the House ethics committee are stacking up like
planes at Washington's National Airport, and so are the embarrassments
for Congress. After the committee investigates Georgia Republican Newt
Gingrich for a questionable book deal, it must consider Ohio Republican
Donald Lukens, convicted in May of having sex with a 16-year-old girl.
Then it will weigh the case of Illinois Democrat Gus Savage, accused of
fondling an unwilling Peace Corps volunteer during a March trip to
Zaire. Last week the committee agreed to investigate Massachusetts
Democrat Barney Frank, who has admitted that he had an affair with a
male prostitute.
On a scale of 1 to HUD, Frank's transgression is
a low single digit: there is no suggestion that he used his public
office for personal gain. In the eyes of some, however, private failings
are far more serious: they go to a leader's judgment and character, as
Gary Hart and John Tower learned. For many people, the fact that the
scandal involves gay sex makes Frank's behavior more offensive; among
others, tolerance of homosexuality has shielded Frank from sharper
criticism.
At the least, Frank's judgment was appallingly naive.
After an initial encounter in which he paid Steve Gobie $80 for sex, the
Congressman says he tried to lift the younger man out of drugs and
prostitution by hiring him to run errands. He wrote letters to Gobie's
probation officer and paid his psychiatric bills. He allowed Gobie the
use of a car and sometimes his apartment when he was out of town.
After
18 months, Frank says, he dismissed Gobie upon discovering that he was
bringing clients to Frank's apartment. Two years later, 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 The Mayflower Madam. This week
Gobie will appear on Geraldo, discussing his prospects for a television
mini-series.
While the House could censure Frank or reprimand
him, colleagues and constituents so far have been generally sympathetic.
The scandal does not involve seducing a minor, as it does with Lukens,
or adultery, since Frank is single. It is an incident from a past secret
life that has come back to haunt a legislator who is widely respected.
Frank can debate and speak extemporaneously better than almost anyone
else in the House, and he tackles some of its more complex problems like
immigration and housing. Back home, he makes sure constituents get help
from 18 staffers who track down Social Security checks and Medicaid
benefits. Though he freely disclosed in 1987 that he was a homosexual,
his district, which encompasses the liberal campuses of Boston and
nearby blue-collar mill towns, re-elected him overwhelmingly in 1988
with 70% of the vote.
Massachusetts Republicans have jumped on
the Frank affair, and the latest poll shows that only 45% of the
Congressman's constituents still look on him favorably -- a blow but not
necessarily a defeat, since 61% want him to run for office again next
year. Alexander Tennant, Massachusetts G.O.P. state committee director,
says the political issue is "not Barney Frank's sex life but whether the
Congressman broke the law." Gobie says he did, by abusing congressional
immunity to avoid paying Gobie's parking tickets, a charge Frank
denies.
Earlier this month Frank apologized to
other Democrats for the embarrassment he was causing. The audience's
eyes were not averted as usual, says one Congressman, because "Barney
was living in a different world in 1985 that most of us don't understand
. . . We have all been stupid when we have fallen for the wrong person.
Most of us were lucky enough to do it when we were younger."
One
reason Frank says he revealed his homosexuality was to square his
private and public lives, to protect himself from the Gobies of the
world who don't abide by the tacit social contract among former spouses
and lovers not to talk because they know so much. When that pact is
broken, the results can be devastating. Massachusetts Republican Edward
Brooke, an able Senator for two terms, lost his seat to challenger Paul
Tsongas amid divorce proceedings in 1978, damaged by press reports that
focused on the breakup of his marriage.
While university
professors and college students might be expected to tolerate Frank's
affair, when he returned to his district it was a largely working-class
crowd that cheered him at a parade through Fall River soon after the
story broke. Perhaps even in quiet, conservative Fall River, the world
isn't as neat as it used to be. One must learn to forgive the sinner
while hating the sin -- or risk shutting out the daughter who had the
abortion, the son with AIDS, the nephew trapped by drugs. Even the most
conservative parts of the Fourth District may decide to believe and
forgive Frank rather than Gobie. Maybe those who catch the early bus
know better than anyone that an honest day's work can sometimes be done
no matter how messy life is at night.
THE CONTENT OF THIS WEBSITE DOES NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE OPINION OF THE OWNER ... At least that's what my lawyer told me, but he was drinking pretty heavily at the time so...
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Herb Moses (left) departed the mortgage giant Fannie Mae in 1998, the year he and Representative Barney Frank split up. (Associated Press/File) 
