Reflecting on Legislative Pragmatism

This message comes from Cappella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more Cappella University's Flex Path Learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at Cppella. edu Bullseye with Jesse Thorne is a production of maximumfund. org and is distributed by NPR. It's Bull'seye, I'm Jesseie Forne. Earlier this year, Barney Frank died, who was eighty six. Frank served in Congress for thirty two years, representing Massachusetts' fourth district. Between two thousand seven and twenty eleven, he chaired the House Financial Services Committee. If you remember your recent history, well, you would be hard pressed to find a more consequential time be overseeing finance policy in the United States Of the hundreds of pieces of policy Barney Frank drafted proposed and voted on, his signature might be the Dodd Frank Act, which regulated financial institutions in the wake of the two thousand eight financial crisis Barney Frank was policy wonk. He was also a great public speaker genuinely funny He's certainly the funniest politician that I've known in my time Definitely if you loved him. a sort of lovable grump He was also a trailblazer. He was the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay In twenty fifteen We took bullseye on the road. did a live show in Boston, specifically in Cambridge And Barney Frank was kind enough to join me on the stage He'd just recently retired from Congress, and he'd written a book Frank, a life in politics from the great society to same sex marriage. He showed up backstage by himself in a frumpy suit. down Looked at me said I'm in the right place, right What am I going on and then took out a book and reeddit frowning until he came on the stage and was amazing Let's listen back to my conversation del late Barney Frank Allright, sir thank you. I actually I do not know if Cgressman is an honorific like president, like it lasts forever. Like are you is no longer a member of Congress. Are you still Cgressman,ank Some people like to keep it. I think titles should die with the office. I think people do too much titling and there's too much deference. I am I am still officially and will forever be honorable Yeah, nothing Nothing I can do No I'm not a great fan of titles outlasting the job So I mean, I'm sure you did like you've done like ten million sort of newsy interviews about the book. and I'm not really a real reporter or anything. So we'll talk relatively little about policy, but it's like the Republican presidential debate. U I guess my I guess something that I wondered was like, I think there was a point in my life. you know, when you're like six years old, you think, o, it would be great to be like president You know what I mean? It' like firemen And then I think maybe when I was like fourteen years old, I thought about what's involved in being president and thought, wow, that sounds. Terrible That sounds like a nightmare. And I think you could probably say the same thing of Congressperson. like on the one hand, you get to be honorable for the rest of your life. But it's a son of a gun of a job. And I wonder if it was a job that you always wanted or there was a time when you decided like this is worth it. Iree I was interesterested in politics When I remember when I was fourteen first being very aned, there was the murder of a black kid from Mississippiian and Mitill,'s y, my age fourteen in nineteen fifty four, brutally murdered because he looked at a white woman the wrong way visiting in Missippi. And I remember being outraged the sheriff was in on it, and the federal government wasn't do anything. So So early on, I thought, yeah, I would like to be in politics. But there was one requirement That I was sure at that time was a requirement that I knew I could not meet, and that was to be not gay. It did not seem to me at fourteen. I realized I was gay when I was thirteen. And it just seemed to me when I was fourteen. this is nineteen fifty four. The notion that we would one day be repudiating homophobia, that gay people, lesbians would be treated like Anybody else the notion that we could fight this, you might as well have told me that my mission in life was to repal the law of gravity. It was just this big fat fact that sat on top of me. So I began to think about maybe doing stuff politically, but not being elected official. That didn't come until much later. When you were a kid like a teenager, did you know other people who were gay No. And I don't now remember this is nineteen I was born in nineteen forty. The only gay people, you know we the word gay, somebody was saying the other, o, I remember, I was with somebody and someone said LGBT. He said, oh, I remember when it was just LNG yeah, when I was growing up it was just F. But I never talked to anybody about being gay. I didn't tell anybody, and nobody ever told me. Who' the first person you told in your life Oh, interesting. It was It wasn't until the twenties actuallyually the first person I guess I told I was gay was someone I was having sex with, but toally beforehand. Well, there's a qualification. I told him I was gay, but I didn't tell him I was me. So he didn't know who I was. I don't know who he was. Names were not a major part of the transaction. But I think it was my siblings. I was in my late thirties. I had been elected to the state legislature. And I do I want to say this though because I am know I acknowledge having been a coward and not thinkin I can make this right. But I got e to the state legislature when I was thirty two There's a part of downtown Boston, the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, which at that point was very different than the rest of Boston. The rest of Boston, you know, if you want to see the rest of Boston you go see Black Mass. I mean, that's what the rest of the city was like. It was a very provincial place. So I got elected. and I got elected in part because George McGon ran and he got comb it everywhere We had eighteen year old votes for the first time and a lot of students in that area. But I made this decision. I had to deal with this. All right, I'm going to conceal the fact that I'm gay because I like the idea of being in politics. And I just if I was honest about it, I'd never win But I also committed myself to being supportive of gay rights. have only contempt for those gay and lesbian people who themselves Practice being gay and then vote for legislation to make other people miserable. And again, I say gay and lesbian because you don't want to be sexist But when I talk about that, I should just say, gay. Be very few lesbians pull that this business of liiving a gay life and then being an anti gay politician, that's almost exclusively a Republican mail. operation. So I am very proud that if In nineteen seventy two, the first year I gotlect to the legislature, I did file a gay rights bill. I also filed a bill to legalize marijuana, so to some extent I welcome the rest of the country to catch it up with Do I mean, when you say that you have nothing but contempt for people in that position, people who are themselves gay, but supported anti gay policies and legislations, do you mean that literally? I mean Absolutely. there was a right to privacy, but it's not a right topriacy. Look, there's a great seventeenth century philosopher John Locke who set out some of the basic tenets that got into the American Constitution. And he said, onene of the important principles is to have a decent government, the people who make the laws have to be affected by the laws. If you can make laws for other people and not have to follow them yourself, they're not going to be fair. This notion that you would yourself perpetuate this abuse of other people for doing what you do is outrageous. And people said, well You know, if they were going to stay in office, they had no choice. That's right.ook you have a right to live your life. You have a right to get a job. And if you have to conceal your sexual orientation because of where you live, the job, that's one thing. But you don't have to be in a legislative body. You don't have to be in an elected office. example people understand, Kim Davis, the woman in Kentucky who didn't want to people get married She said this is her religious freedom. No, it wasn't her religious freedom. Nobody made a run for the office. She ran for the job and having run for the job and won it, she didn't want to use that to deny other people the rights. So you don't have to get into public office. You don't have to get authority of other people. But if you voluntarily take authority over other people and then you are that hypocritical and make them miserable, no, I meant that literally When in your life were? C ononey, by the way I'll give you a literary reference. I was in the airport today and I saw George H W Bush's biography of him, and I gave it what we call a Washington read. A Washington read is you go to the index and look for your name. and you look up. And I always do I could tell you by the way, that almost every book on American politics mentions Benju and Franklin. And the way I know that is as I go through the index, if I come to Franklin, I'm not there becauserankin Franklin So I went to I pretty feel pretty cocky. I went to O manan Butcher's autob the memoir of the biography of him. And he does I'm in there. And he cited a reference to a point in nineteen ninety one when the Republicans threatened he was president, his Republican national security chairman put out a memo saying that Tom Foley, who was a Democratic speaker should come out of his liberal closet. it was printed on lavender paper and it talked about how he and I voted alike. I had been out by then. And it was an effort to kind of imply that Foley was gay and also that being gay was terrible. So my response was that I obviously didn't agree that being gay was a terrible thing But if that was the norm, then I would feel was my duty to give a list of all the gay Republicans to the appropriate people. And they backed off at that time. And Bush notes that in he's quoted his talk about that in his memo. He wasn't happy. We'll have much more with the late Congressman Barney Frank after a break. We'll be back in a minute. It's buulloseseye from maximum fund. org and NPR This message comes from Wise, the smart way to manage your money around the world. With Wise, you can send, spend and receive money in over forty currencies at the mid market rate. Learn more at wise. com Ts and Cs Apply This message comes from Thumbtag. Recommendations can be great. Maybe someone recommended this podcast and here you are. But home projects are different. If a podcast isn't your thing, you lose a few minutes. If you hire your cousin's neighbor to mount your TV, you might end up with a lopsided screen and wall damage. That's why Thumbtag works It matches people with top rated local pros, with photos, reviews, and credentials all in one place. For your next home project, try Thumbtag Hire the right pro today NPR's tiny desk can't come to you. I mean it's a desk, but the tiny desk contest tour can. New York City join NPR's tiny desesk contest winner, Cure for Paranoia at Warsaw this july ninth. It's all the NPR tiny Desk ennerergy minus the office furniture Get your tickets now at tinydesktour. org Welcome back to bullse ey. I'm Jesse Foror We're listening back to my conversation with the late Cgressman, Barney Frank. Frank died earlier this year He was eighty six years old He served Massachusetts' fourth district for thirty years He was the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay When I spoke to Frank in twenty fifteen, we were live on stage in Boston, Massachusetts. Let's get back into our conversation. How old were you when you were able to have U relationship and I don't mean a public relationship, but just just like date somebody It started in my thirties, not really until I in my forties because here was a problem. I' made this choice, my choice. nobody to blame about myself U to have a public career at the price of my private life And that made it very hard to have relationship because it was a secret relationship. I mean, I guess I think I'm good person to be with, but I don't think I am so Iirresistibly desirable that people are going to put up with all kinds of nonsense like hiding just to have the privilege of my company. And it becomes it's very hard to have a public career and be private. Where do you go? I mean, people knew who I was. And so it really retarded that. And in fact, I got to Washington. It was very hard in Boston, small town. Everybody's going watch me I got to Washington and I thought, well, Washington may be big enough so I can do this. And that didn't work either. Some people would be too out for me, I would be too out for them. And that's why I decided to come out publicly, Fankly, was that I just was not able to have a satisfying personal life. And you may hear people say, o, they say this about people causing She didn't have to have a personal life. Her career made up for it. People say their career made up for it. That's nonsense. No career gives you the kind of personal and physical and emotional outlets you need. And in my experience, people who are deeply closetited and they're in a job where there's a lot of personal interaction That hurts the ability to do the job. When I was thinking about coming out, one of my colleagues who heard about it, I wasn't being all that quiet about it. In fact Tip O'Neill heard about it. He was then the speaker. and he told one of his friends that was he was afraid that he liked me, but I was all through in politics. Banny Frank's all through in politics So the guy was Mike Barnacle, asked him, why? He said, Well, I think he's gonna to come out of the room. But so people said, don't do it. it's going to damage you. We don't w want to lose you. But after I came out overwhelmingly, they said, you know what? you're better at the job now. There was an anger. There was an emotional tightness that went away. and I was in a job where being able to get along with people was important. One of the things that you write about in the book is that you have never really enjoyed running for office. You you seem to like it's really evident that you really enjoy Um politics and the political process and policy and you know help me make the world a better place and so on and so forth. But that rununning, which maybe for some people is an enjoyable way to connect with of a lot of people, to some extent H for you I like dealing with people when I was in office because then you could be talking to them. But you got to think about campaigning. F of all, You're in a campaign, it's by campaign, that generally means you're in an collion where you don't know what the outcome is, because if you know, you go through the motion. So you're in there And then what do you do? It's very even now it's gotten worse with money. You have to raise more, but it's very repetitive. You do twelve events a day, you repeat yourself. I mean, you got to in fact, here's the deal. If you are asked, you know you talk about issues If you vary what you say, then you're going to be attacked for being inconsistent. So you have to repeat yourself all the time. You have to go show that you're available. Marothera Cop, you got attacked because she said, she don't want to stand out in front of Fenway Park, you know and shake hands. Well, you got to do that, But the fact is that a lot of the people you want to shake hands with think you're pain the ass. You get away from me. I want to go to a game. and so you mean very little of what you do in a campaign Would you do if you didn't absolutely have to? no things that you like Afterwards, then it's interesting you get to talk to people about their lives, their jobs, how you can be helpful. And I enjoyed working with other members to try and work things out, but campaigning, no, never. And by the way, I don't think anybody really likes it. I know people that, Oh, Id love to campaign. I would just war you when you hear someone who talks about how much He loves to campaign. It's either a my or a psychopath When you were still in the closet What about it was scariest to you U the fear that I was never going to have the kind of satisfying emotional life that was there. and I Later on, look the inscription of my book is to Jim who's madeade Better Late than ever my favorite Cichet I used to hate love songs. I mean, there was a whole part of human experience that was I didn't know anything about. And I would be very jealous and get depressed about this. And so yeah, I was afraid that I would go through life deprived of this. And then look, you have physical needs. And so I then met my physical needs Iresponsibly in some ways, anonymously, there was an element of I was never never fear of violence, although that was look one of the first things I learned when I first ran for the legislature and I worked with the gay men in the city and they had complaints about the police and I thought it was going to be that they were being police brutality was no that when they were the victims of crimes, they found it hard to approach the police because you would be robbed by some guy you picked up on the street and you could not you didn't want to reveal that. And the police were very helpful in trying to find ways that they could deal with that. But it was the fear of exposure. I mean that would be The fear of exposure was maybe the most obvious, but this fear of living my life having missed out on what everybody told me was a wonderable part of the human experience, but I was never able to experience myself. That was pretty scary. Was there ever a time when you like really seriously considered abandoning public life? Oh very much so Yeah, I was going to abandon public life until the pope made me not U classic story. How many people have sat on this stage and told the story of the time opp person? I got out to the legislature in this very unusual district in back B Beeacon Hill. And I was there for about a years, but I said, you know what? I'm not going to be able to go on for it. too I'm not a great candidate U By the way, when I first ran it wasn't just being gay, it was an issue It was the fact that I'm Jewish, although I can report that antemitism has pretty much disappeared as a political problem for candidates. But what happens here is this I decide, okay, I've enjoyed being in the legislature. I went to law school, so I would have something to do. I said, Here's I'm going to do. I'm going Sry about one more term. Well,' to make a living. Right,. terrible problem if you're an elected official and you have no alternative way to make a living, then you really do become a prisoner of other people's prejudices because it's one thing to lose the prestige of the job. It's another not to be able to support yourself And so I was I started coming out to my siblings and my closest friends, and I was going to serve one more term in the legislature retire from elected politics But I would I had passed the bar I was going to be a lawyer. At that point, this would have been nineteen eighty two. I would have been as high ranking an elected official as anybody who was out who was gay because Mad's legislature has a fairly significant job. So I was going to be a gay rights activist and a lawyer, and I was going to be out Because I knew if I came out, I couldn't get elected or anything. I had thought about maybe running for Congress. I thought that was one job I might be able to win. But I lived in the district including Cambridge and Tip O'Neill was the congressan. He was a great congressan. that was nothing I was going to think about doing. And then in nineteen eighty, I got a call from the wife of a good friend of mine had been a legislature with. and she told me the congressman from the district next to mine, which was also a pretty liberal distict, Newton in Brookline as its core, He was a Jesuit priest. hisis name was Robert Draryan. He'd been the deean of the Boston College law schoolool in nineteen seventy, got elected as an anti war candidate beating a pro war Democrat And he was very liberal. And when Pope John Paul II became the Pope, he was persuaded by conservative Catholics that it was bad for them to have a liberal priest in Congress. So he ordered Dinan not to run again. And when he ordered Dinan not to run again That created the vacancy for me to run for Congress. So it was the decision of Pope John Paul II that created a vacancy. And Drainan said that they never let him see the Pope after that. But he did want to say just askking one question, that business where you made me quit Congress, did that work out the way you thought it was So I was going to quit, and then I got elected to the Congress. And at that point I was starting to come out. I remember calling my brother in law, call my sister and says, You just heard a closet door slam because I'm running for Congress. So I started coming out in seven thousand nine and eighty and then I postponed it for a few years until I was fairly secure as a member of Congress. One of the things that really shines through in your book your belief in a kind of pragmatism in government and in your life that, you know, there's some of your proudest achievements are compromises U All my team is to compromises because I was never the absolute monarch So I was never in a position on any important issue, which involves a whole lot of interesting people to do exactly what I wanted Did lookingoo back do you ever wish And one of the things that you write about in the book is the extent to which decisions like your decision to run for Congress are not like complicated strategic decisions like historians think of them but really the emotional decisions of people. And taking advantage of opportunities. Yeah I wondered if you ever wish to yourself I wish I had made an emotional decision just in nineteen eighty two just come out And I could have had five more years of my life No, because I would have had five more years of being out But I would not have had a congressional career And I am proud of the fact that I was the first person to come out voluntarily. in nineteen eighty seven. And would I believe I was instrumental. When I got elected to Congress, the immmigration law of America said that if you were gay or lesbian, you could not come to America even as a tourist. And it wasn't always enforced, but it was in there. And I believe that if I hadn't been there, that would not have gotten out as early as it did And there were some other things that I was able to accomplish. One very specific thing I got Bill Clinton to do, gay, lesbian, bisexual, particularly transgender people were being persecuted in other countries. As of nineteen ninety five, because of Clinton's response to my request became eligible for asylum in America Transgendnder people living in America today, safe Wh might have been killed if they weren't able to come out. I wouldn't have been able to do any of that if I'd come out earlier ye, you know it was a deferral rather than a denial. If I had never come out yeet, it would have been a very bad idea. Finally, by ' eighty seven, I was not ready to accept denial forever. I wasn't sure that I would get relected I hoped I would. But by ' eighty seven, I was ready to say, OK, full speed I had and damn the consequences. But it then turned out to work out pretty well We're going to take a break when we come back, we will finish up the late Barney Frank Bullseye from maximumfund.ot org PR two hundred and fifty years ago, the nation's founders considered a free press a critical protection for we the people. Today, the NPR network proudly upholds your First Amendment rights with reporting accountable only to you It's something we protect together Join the people who power the NPR network by showing your support at plus. npr. org Hey, are you playing a video game right now? Maybe you put on a podcast while grinding in an RPG, or maybe you just don't w want to hear that boss fight music one more time. In there I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Dreer, and I'm Kirk Hamilton. We're the host of Triple Click, a video game podcast. A podcast you can listen to while you do other things, like driving or cooking, or playing video games On TripleClick we share thoughts on the latest games and breaking news out of the video game industry, and we also talk about other stuff besides games. So while you're doing something else, make sure to check out TripleClick Listen on maximumfund. org or wherever you find your podcasts. It's Bllsye I' Jesie Thorn. We'reening back to my twenty fifteen conversation with the late Cgressman Barney Frank There have obviously been some Prety huge improvements in the law surrounding LGBT people in the United States in the last ten years or so You know, sometimes I feel like When it became legal for people of the same sex to marry a lot of U well meaning people who supported that right. sort of patted themselves on the back and said, great. We fixed the gay situation Um And, you know, in as you would know, you know, in manyany states somewhere between many and most states in the United States. majority. You can still be fired for being gay Um You know, there are these huge challenges ahead U And I wonder how Sanguine you feel about Oh, I'm very optimistic. I think the fight I think we've won the fight in Ary politically and we're in a mop up operation. That doesn't mean you let up No, I There's the thing about military history, which is People are critical of reat military leaders because they win a victory and then they relax after winning the victory instead of pressing on. And we won some great victories, but this is a time when you press on. And now it's this way, but it's true in a number of areas in America. If you live, let's put it this way, a majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual people, transgender people are still having more of a fight A majority of us live in states in America where we have every right everybody else does because lot of states protect us there are still people who live in southern states and some other states where that's not the case And yeah, there is still that fight to be to be made. Now we just won another secondary fight I was a little nervous about. and that was this effort to let people who want to use their religion against us to do that. And one of the most encouraging things happen was in Indiana, where they were going to pass a law that allowed bigots to refuse to honor or treat P peopleople in the same sex marriage fairly, and that got defeated. And what was nice about it was it was defeated not just by people who believed in fairness, but the business community came into it. And the business community said, hey, look, we want to make money. We don't want to pick and choose as to who we make money from. And as's an interesting principle there the biggest thought they were giving the business community They were doing them a favor by saying, we're going to give you the right to deny service to those gay people. And the business commany said, we didn't ask you for that. I don't want to have that right because I'm either going to deny service to some people and make them mad or not deny service to people and make other people mad. And there was a very important principle there, which I will share with you. Be very cautious about doing favors for people that they haven't asked you to do. These people thought they were given a great favor of the business Mity by giving them a chance to pick. and they said, we don't want to pick. We want to serve everybody. I learned that, by the way, my first year in Congress because a woman called me and said, her daughter was to get married and her fiancee was being shipped overseas. and could I hold a back so we can get married So I called the Army, and they said, Oh, no, you can't intervene on behalf of somebody else. You have to check with him. So I was going to call the guy, but before I could call him to tell him, don't worry, I'm going to make sure you can stay here, he called my office and left a message with one of my aides, tellell him to mind his own bleep in business because he didn't want to get married He didn't need me to come and try and undo this. But that's what the biggest is. So the answer is there're still fighting to be done. And yes, there are gay and lesbian and bisexual people in some areas and transgender people who haven't got their full rights. But I think the force is with us on this. In reading your book, I could tell how deeply you cared about Oh you know, the way laws affect the finance industry. housing There are some issues that you really made your signature issues in a long career in Congress And I wonder If it's weird for you that you are retired and you are gay former Cgressman Barnie Frank And I say that acknowledging that I just have talked to you about being gay for half an hour. Yeah, no, o, no, no. look, that is one of the things that I'm proud to have been able to do. But we do have the financial reform bill. and actuallyctually, one of the areas I worked on the longest and it's obviously very relevant here, building more rental housing. And that continues to be an issue. and something I've worked on just got activated that iss going to help build a Affordable rental housing No, I never had this, oh, I'm not a gay congressman. I'm a congressman who just happens to be gay. Well, I I guess I just did happen to be gay. I didn't have much to do with it, but no, I you didn't pick it because it seemed fly. Yeah. No I was a gay congressman and that was given the you know it's interesting too for me If I was twenty years older, I would not have had much of a career in fighting for gay rights because it wouldn't have been possible. And I'm hoping if I was twenty years younger, it wouldn't have been necessary I really haven't have been there at the cuts, but I don't feel underappreciated. Look I think back to when I was a kid and how I was kind of like you know looking at politics and enjoying it and thinkings I'll never be able to be there, things worked out a hell lot better for me than ever thought they would. So no I have no sense that I'm being unfairly Whre goed. What was the most fun part about being a congressman? Working the legislative process, welcome Most of us like things we're good at and don't like things we're not good at. And that's why I encourage people. try, if you're picking a job, try and find one that you enjoy and a place to your strength. I know there are people, oh, I should do this because it's something I should do, even though I hate it. You can't live holding a gun to your own head, even though what's the name does that in Bighting Saddles, but it doesn't work It does not really work well in real life. So what I most liked was I was very good at working with other politicians, figuring out how to get them to do things, trying to get it's an interesting thing when you remember of Congress, four hundred thirty five were equ to be equal people. Nobody can give anybody else an order And cant you can't buy their votes. you know people don't do that. So it's figuring out how you How do you frame the things you care about in ways that will most appeal to other people? You find things that you like, you find what's most important to you and what's most important to them, and you hope they don't insect because that way you can give in on theirs and they give in on yours. So actually getting legislation done, that process of you the compromising the I saw you backstage doing a crossword and it occurred to me The fitting of those pieces together for you.ounds like it's a game that's fun to play. It is It's kind of look, I have no spatial Skilled. I cannot look at twoo dimensions and a vision three dimensions So I could do a Rubik's tube forever. It would never work But the human Rubic scube, yeah, I did How do you fit it together? And it's like first of all, you know everybody. One of my jobs was I think I knew as much about every other member of Congress as anybody, because you got to know people and know what motivates them. And you know what's important to them. And you know, frankly, which people you might be able to flatter or intimidate, or what you could do for some other people. I spend all my time particularly once I became chairman. and I had a roleel on this. Lyndon Johnson when he was in the majority of the Senate. And I enjoyed that, especially because it was for high stakes. I mean, I enjoyed doing this because the end result would be more affordable housing or better regulation of the financial industry or getting rid of donuts, don't tell. The process was fun and the result was valuable. Couldn't get any better than that. I was about to say Congressman, Frank, but I'll say Honorable, Mr. Frank