Rep. Barney Frank Will Not Seek Re-election After Term Ends; Industry Reacts

NU Online News Service, Nov. 28, 3:19 p.m. EST

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., one of the primary authors of financial services reform legislation passed by Congress last year, says he will not return after his term ends in 2013.

He will have served 32 years in Congress.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is next in line to succeed Frank as ranking minority member of the House Financial Services Committee. However Waters is under scrutiny by the House Ethics Committee for her role in helping a troubled bank in which her husband owns stock.

In July, the ethics panel turned the case over to an outside counsel to determine whether the panel is too partisan to deal with the issue objectively.

Next in line is Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.

Frank, 71, had said in February that he would run for re-election, but says he changed his mind after his district was changed to include several more conservative areas, including Milford, Attleboro and Hopkinton, and remove the white-collar stronghold of New Bedford.

“I was planning to run again and then the congressional redistricting came,” Frank says. “I know my own capacity and energy levels and it would have been a mistake…. I could not have put the requisite effort in.”

Frank tells reporters he was too old to campaign in a new district and to represent hundreds of thousands of new constituents.

“I think I'd win,” he adds, but “it would have been a tough race; I don't like raising money.”

He says he will continue to be active politically. “I'm not retiring from advocacy of public policy,” he states, but adds, “I will be neither a lobbyist [nor] a historian.”

He says he would do “some combination of writing, teaching and lecturing.”

Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee for four years, from 2007 to early this year, when he became ranking minority member of the panel after the 2010 elections.

Frank, along with then-Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., shepherded through Congress sweeping financial services reform legislation that bears their name.

Joel Kopperud, director of government affairs for the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, says, “It goes without saying that [Frank] was a real leader for members of the Financial Services Committee and the industry as a whole.”

Kopperud says Frank “will be missed not only for his intellect, but his candor and humor—always making committee hearings a little more interesting.”

Leigh Ann Pusey, president and CEO of the American Insurance Association, says, “During his long career, Frank showed an understanding and appreciation of our industry. This was particularly evident during his tenure as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.”

She credits Frank for playing a leading role in passing TRIA reauthorization. 

“Most recently, AIA worked with Frank to ensure that the Dodd-Frank Act, legislation aimed at reforming and modernizing financial services regulation, correctly recognized that insurers do not pose a systemic risk.  He understood that insurers maintain a low-risk business model which protects policyholders in times of economic uncertainty.”

Ben McKay, senior vice president, government affairs for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, says, “Rep. Frank is a passionate public servant, having served in the House for more than 30 years. He remained committed to process throughout the Dodd-Frank Act.”