First elected to Congress in 1980, Barney Frank represented Massachusetts’s 4th District for 32 years. He is known as a superb legislator and a pragmatic politician whose sharp intellect and sense of humor made him one of Washington’s most influential and colorful figures. While in Congress, Frank worked to adjust America’s spending priorities to reduce the deficit, provide less funding for the military and more for domestic programs. He argues here that the US could safely trim its military budget if American allies took more responsibility for their own defense.

As chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank was a key author of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In 1987, Frank became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as openly gay, and in 2012 he married his longtime partner, becoming the nation’s first congressman in a same-sex marriage while in office. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 29451]