An Architect of Wall Street Reform Prepares for Life After Politics

When a new Congress convenes next month, Wall Street will lose a longtime foe. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who helped lead a regulatory crackdown after the financial crisis, is retiring after more than 30 years on Capitol Hill.

An unapologetic liberal with a sharp tongue and a knack for financial minutiae, Mr. Frank built a broad legacy as an advocate for affordable housing, an opponent of the death penalty and one of President Bill Clinton’s staunchest supporters during impeachment proceedings.

Mr. Frank, who in 1987 became the first sitting member of Congress to volunteer that he was gay, also championed efforts to shield gay people from discrimination — efforts like the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that banned them from serving openly in the military.

As the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Mr. Frank scored a signature legislative victory with the passing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the financial regulatory law. Passed in response to the crisis, the law reshaped the financial landscape and reined in some of the riskiest corners of Wall Street, including the derivatives market and proprietary trading.

Now he is ready for a break. Mr. Frank, 72, recently married his longtime partner, Jim Ready. He also shed roughly 25 pounds and hired a book agent. In short, he is counting the seconds until life after politics.

On a recent break from packing up his Washington office, Mr. Frank reflected on his 16-term tenure. The speed-talking congressman, dressed in his usual disheveled manner, discussed his role in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as the bank bailout, the battle over Dodd-Frank and his next career as an author.

The following is an edited excerpt from the interview.

You are weeks away from leaving. Is the feeling bittersweet? Relief? Both?

Oh, it’s mostly relief. I’m just tired. Look, I’m still here, and I still have responsibility. But when the people who work for me or somebody else calls me with a problem, my first reaction is, “Well, do I have to?”

You come from a blue-collar family in Bayonne, N.J. You hold degrees from Harvard and Harvard Law School. You were a “Freedom Summer” volunteer in 1964. And you’ve spent nearly 40 years in politics. What’s next?

I want to be an active participant in the public debate. In some ways more effectively — I hope — than I’ve been now. There’s an awful skepticism about what we say, those of us who are in elected office. And I expect to say the same things I’ve been saying, but without them being screened through this, “Oh, you’re just doing that to get votes.”

What type of platform are you seeking?

One, I’m going to write a book. I hope to write two. And I’ve always liked to write. Talking comes easily to me. Writing is harder. And I have an agent and I’m working on a couple of book proposals. At the start, one is a general advocacy piece about liberals and what we should be doing.

What should liberals do?

First of all, stop trying to ride two horses. Stop trying to push for the expansion of important government programs while joining in the bashing of government. It doesn’t work. I think liberals should say, “We think government’s a good thing, done right, and we’re for expanding it.” But then the way you effectuate that, in my judgment, is by a substantial reduction in America’s military budget.

During that memorable evening when Clint Eastwood lost a debate to a chair, the one thing he said that was coherent and that got some applause, or a lot of applause, was when he said, “Why don’t we pull out of Afghanistan?” I mean, that got kind of lost in the general shambles of that performance. But the Republicans cheered him for saying, well, why don’t we just get out altogether? The public’s ready to do that.

What about the second book?

The second book is a history of the gay rights movement.

How has the environment on Capitol Hill changed for gay lawmakers?

Things have gotten tremendously better. The first thing that brought that about, very simply, was our being honest about who we are. When I started, I was closeted myself. People didn’t know any gay or lesbian people, they thought.

I think the country has moved considerably on. Reality has helped. We’ve had same-sex marriage. We’ve had gays in the military. So we’re on the verge of a total breakthrough.

Was Dodd-Frank your most significant contribution as a congressman?

I don’t like to answer questions like that because you start getting into self-judgments. And when you get into self-judgments, you’re either unattractively arrogant, or, literally, incredibly humble.

O.K., then was Dodd-Frank your hardest-fought battle?

It was. Well, I’m also pleased with the role I played in fighting discrimination based on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender status. Low-income housing was one. But yeah, in terms of legislative achievement, it was a major effort.

What could you have done better? For example, you’ve been vocal about your displeasure with the so-called Durbin amendment, the Dodd-Frank rule that limits the amount banks can charge retail shops when a consumer swipes a debit card. And why allow federal regulators to pre-empt state authorities that also oversee the banks?

I would have liked to go further with the pre-emption issue.

In no rational world will you have a separate Securities and Exchange Commission and a Commodity Futures Trading Commission. So that one I would have liked to change. I was sorry that my three Republican friends who voted for the bill did so only after making us take the $20 billion assessment off the banks and financial houses and put it onto the taxpayer.

I’m not a fan of the Durbin amendment. I think that’s not going to help the consumer. That was intervening in a fight between two economic groups that should be left to their own.

Do you also have regrets about your past support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing finance giants that took nearly $200 billion in government bailouts? When the housing market collapsed, they did, too.

I was wrong in thinking that the general housing market would hold up some.

With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I did support an increase in their role in affordable rental housing. But by 2005, I saw the need for changes. And the key is, when I became chairman, when I had power, we regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

You are known for blistering outbursts about your opponents. You once sarcastically said that Newt Gingrich “considers himself one of the intellectual leaders of the free world.” Who is currently the most irritating or difficult person in Washington?

Oh, there are obviously several. At this point, the one who I think is the least constructive is Mitch McConnell.

I’ve felt for some time that if you’re going to be in a leadership position, you should have a very safe seat. If you’re going to be in a leadership position in a legislative body, you’re going to have to do some things that are going to be unpopular.

I’ll give an example in my own case. I happened to be the chairman when the need came to stabilize the economy in the face of a banking collapse in a bipartisan way, at the request of the Bush administration. And we did the TARP, the loans to banks.

I think it’s going to be clear, TARP will go down historically as the most highly successful, wildly unpopular policy in the history of America. And I lost 14 points in the last election because of it. Fortunately for me, I had a 68 percent majority in 2008. So when I lost 14 points, I still got 54 percent.

Reflecting back on your Congressional career, what was your favorite moment?

Well, probably the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” When that got repealed, both in terms of what it meant for gay people in terms of repealing this libel that there was something the matter with us, and in terms of what it meant for the country, that was a very high moment.