How did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick accent become one of the most effective (and funniest) politicians of our time?
Growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, the fourteen-year-old Barney Frank made two vital discoveries about himself: he was attracted to government, and to men. He resolved to make a career out of the first attraction and to keep the second a secret. Now, fifty years later, his sexual orientation is widely accepted, while his belief in government is embattled.
Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage is one man's account of the country's transformation—and the tale of a truly momentous career. Many Americans recall Frank's lacerating wit, whether it was directed at the Clinton impeachment ("What did the president touch, and when did he touch it?") or the pro-life movement (some people believe "life begins at conception and ends at birth"). But the contours of his private and public lives are less well-known. For more than four decades, he was at the center of the struggle for personal freedom and economic fairness. From the battle over AIDS funding in the 1980s to the debates over "big government" during the Clinton years to the 2008 financial crisis, the congressman from Massachusetts played a key role. In 2010, he coauthored the most far-reaching and controversial Wall Street reform bill since the era of the Great Depression, and helped bring about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
In this feisty and often moving memoir, Frank candidly discusses the satisfactions, fears, and grudges that come with elected office. He recalls the emotional toll of living in the closet and how his public crusade against homophobia conflicted with his private accommodation of it. He discusses his painful quarrels with allies; his friendships with public figures, from Tip O'Neill to Sonny Bono; and how he found love with his husband, Jim Ready, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. He also demonstrates how he used his rhetorical skills to expose his opponents' hypocrisies and delusions. Through it all, he expertly analyzes the gifts a successful politician must bring to the job, and how even Congress can be made to work.
Frank is the story of an extraordinary political life, an original argument for how to rebuild trust in government, and a guide to how political change really happens—composed by a master of the art.
How did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick accent become one of the most effective (and funniest) politicians of our time?
Growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, the fourteen-year-old Barney Frank made two vital discoveries about himself: he was attracted to government, and to men. He resolved to make a career out of the first attraction and to keep the second a secret. Now, fifty years later, his sexual orientation is widely accepted, while his belief in government is embattled.
Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage is one man's account of the country's transformation—and the tale of a truly momentous career. Many Americans recall Frank's lacerating wit, whether it was directed at the Clinton impeachment ("What did the president touch, and when did he touch it?") or the pro-life movement (some people believe "life begins at conception and ends at birth"). But the contours of his private and public lives are less well-known. For more than four decades, he was at the center of the struggle for personal freedom and economic fairness. From the battle over AIDS funding in the 1980s to the debates over "big government" during the Clinton years to the 2008 financial crisis, the congressman from Massachusetts played a key role. In 2010, he coauthored the most far-reaching and controversial Wall Street reform bill since the era of the Great Depression, and helped bring about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
In this feisty and often moving memoir, Frank candidly discusses the satisfactions, fears, and grudges that come with elected office. He recalls the emotional toll of living in the closet and how his public crusade against homophobia conflicted with his private accommodation of it. He discusses his painful quarrels with allies; his friendships with public figures, from Tip O'Neill to Sonny Bono; and how he found love with his husband, Jim Ready, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. He also demonstrates how he used his rhetorical skills to expose his opponents' hypocrisies and delusions. Through it all, he expertly analyzes the gifts a successful politician must bring to the job, and how even Congress can be made to work.
Frank is the story of an extraordinary political life, an original argument for how to rebuild trust in government, and a guide to how political change really happens—composed by a master of the art.
Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage
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Overview
How did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick accent become one of the most effective (and funniest) politicians of our time?
Growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, the fourteen-year-old Barney Frank made two vital discoveries about himself: he was attracted to government, and to men. He resolved to make a career out of the first attraction and to keep the second a secret. Now, fifty years later, his sexual orientation is widely accepted, while his belief in government is embattled.
Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage is one man's account of the country's transformation—and the tale of a truly momentous career. Many Americans recall Frank's lacerating wit, whether it was directed at the Clinton impeachment ("What did the president touch, and when did he touch it?") or the pro-life movement (some people believe "life begins at conception and ends at birth"). But the contours of his private and public lives are less well-known. For more than four decades, he was at the center of the struggle for personal freedom and economic fairness. From the battle over AIDS funding in the 1980s to the debates over "big government" during the Clinton years to the 2008 financial crisis, the congressman from Massachusetts played a key role. In 2010, he coauthored the most far-reaching and controversial Wall Street reform bill since the era of the Great Depression, and helped bring about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
In this feisty and often moving memoir, Frank candidly discusses the satisfactions, fears, and grudges that come with elected office. He recalls the emotional toll of living in the closet and how his public crusade against homophobia conflicted with his private accommodation of it. He discusses his painful quarrels with allies; his friendships with public figures, from Tip O'Neill to Sonny Bono; and how he found love with his husband, Jim Ready, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. He also demonstrates how he used his rhetorical skills to expose his opponents' hypocrisies and delusions. Through it all, he expertly analyzes the gifts a successful politician must bring to the job, and how even Congress can be made to work.
Frank is the story of an extraordinary political life, an original argument for how to rebuild trust in government, and a guide to how political change really happens—composed by a master of the art.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780374711429 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 03/17/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Barney Frank represented the Fourth Congressional District of Massachusetts for more than three decades and chaired the House Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2011. He is a regular commentator on MSNBC and divides his time between a home with his husband near Portland, Maine, and his apartment in Newton, Massachusetts.
Barney Frank represented the Fourth Congressional District of Massachusetts for nearly five decades, and chaired the House Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2013. He is the first member of congress to enter a same-sex marriage while serving in office. He is a regular commentator on MSNBC and lives near Portland, Maine, with his husband.
Read an Excerpt
Frank
A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage
By Barney Frank
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2015 Barney FrankAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-374-71142-9
CHAPTER 1
FROM BAYONNE TO BOSTON
In 1954, I was a fairly normal fourteen-year-old, enjoying sports, unhealthy food, and loud music. But even then I realized that there were two ways in which I was different from the other guys: I was attracted to the idea of serving in government and I was attracted to the other guys.
I also realized that these two attractions would not mix well. At the time, public officials were highly regarded. The president, Dwight Eisenhower, was one of America's most admired and respected military heroes. I was a homosexual, an involuntary member of one of America's most despised groups. I knew that achieving success in any area where popularity was required would be impossible, given the unpopularity of my sexual orientation.
If this were fiction, a spoiler alert would now be appropriate, because the story ends with a dramatic turnabout. When I retired from Congress in January 2013, the divergent reputations of elected officials and homosexuality persisted, but with one major difference: The order was reversed. Legal protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people were more popular than elected officials as a class. Congress was held in particularly low esteem. While I did not do any polling on the subject myself, I was told that my marriage to my husband, Jim Ready, scored better than my service in the House.
When I first entered public life in 1968, I had to figure out how to keep the public's negative feelings about my sexual orientation from interfering with my political effectiveness. By the time I'd overcome that obstacle, a larger one appeared: the growing unpopularity of government itself, and the consequent diminution of its capacity to assist the unfortunate. My influence over the political system grew even as the system's influence diminished. This was good for my self-esteem but bad for my public policy agenda.
This book is a personal history of two seismic shifts in American life: the sharp drop in prejudice against LGBT people and the equally sharp increase in antigovernment opinion. During my six decades in the public realm, Americans have become more accepting of once-despised minorities but also more resistant to coming together through government to improve the quality of our lives. How did this happen and what can be done to further the victories and reverse the defeats?
The many years I've spent advocating unpopular causes have taught me that it's important to begin with your best case, not in the hope of making instant converts but to persuade your audience that there is room for debate about a subject. Fortunately, when it comes to attitudes toward government, that case is even better than a no-brainer—it is a pro-brainer: the story of the millions of children who have been protected from brain damage by federal rules that were adopted over the vehement objections and dire predictions of affected industries.
Before 1970, lead was a major component of paint and gasoline. Its corrosive effects, which are uncontested today, had their worst impact on the very young, impairing in particular the development of the brain cells known as neuroglia. All young people were exposed to lead, and poorer children were the most exposed, since the paint in their homes was more likely to contain lead and to chip, and because they often lived in crowded urban areas adjacent to heavy traffic flows.
Over the objections of private industry, many public health advocates, especially those focused on children, pressed for action. They were successful. The process began in 1970 with the Clean Air Act, which was followed by the Lead-Based Poisoning Prevention Act a year later. A series of amendments and implementing regulations steadily increased the restrictions, culminating in 1978 with a ban on lead in paint, and a statute enacted in 1990 and effective in 1995 prohibiting lead in gasoline.
Critics of government regulation should heed all of this carefully. As the prohibitions came into effect, the incidence of death and illness from lead ingestion dropped drastically. Between 1975 and 1980 and 2007 and 2008, lead levels in children's blood dropped 90 percent. In 1990, the FDA estimated there were already seventy thousand fewer children with IQs below seventy because of the rules.
The paint and gasoline industries denied that lead was harmful in the amounts present in their products and predicted severe economic harm if they had to remove it. They were never able to explain why banning lead in fact coincided not just with fewer brain-damaged children but also with their own continued prosperity. Lead-damaged brains still exist, sadly, and there is more to be done to reduce the number. But the undeniable fact is that millions of Americans have healthy brains today in large part because, contrary to the old joke, some people from the government did come to help them.
* * *
In 1954, the government was still popular, but homosexuals were held in universal contempt. This had been made explicit the previous year when President Eisenhower issued an executive order decreeing that people like me could never receive security clearances. We were too inherently untrustworthy to help protect our country from its enemies.
I do not remember being specifically aware of the order at the time, but as an avid newspaper reader growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, I must have seen the New York Times headline that referred to us as "perverts," and I was fully aware of what awaited me if my true nature was known. (I say "true nature" for the edification of that dwindling set of bigots who justify mistreating us because we "chose an alternative lifestyle." Being hated is rarely an experience sought by teenagers.)
At fourteen, I decided I would keep my sexual identity a secret forever, although I didn't give much thought to how that was going to work. Terrified by the obloquy that would come with being found out, I regarded total concealment as my only option. The recognition that there could be no role for a "queer" in public life had an additional and deep emotional impact: It is very probably the reason that I later approached every tough election campaign with the assumption I would lose.
A televised Senate hearing first inspired my fascination with government. My father was what we now call an "early adopter." When I was born in 1940, he celebrated by buying a television set—before almost everybody else and before there was much to watch. I have early memories of Western movies, the second Billy Conn–Joe Louis fight, Howdy Doody, and Senator Estes Kefauver's investigation into organized crime. I enjoyed all the programs, but I never wanted to be a cowboy, a boxer, or a puppeteer. I preferred the idea of sitting behind an impressive dais grilling colorful Mafiosi. At ten, I was more intrigued than instructed, but when another set of hearings came on the TV four years later, I was hooked by both the spectacle and the subject matter. This was the Army-McCarthy brawl.
In 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy turned his demagogic attention to the U.S. Army. The army had just finished fighting two Communist regimes in Korea—but this did not stop McCarthy from deeming it soft on communism. The army hired the Boston lawyer Joseph Welch as its lead counsel in the Senate hearings that were held on McCarthy's accusations.
Welch became a hero to Americans in general, and liberals in particular, for the deftness of his anti-McCarthy thrusts. One of the deftest was his sly allusion to the sexual orientation of McCarthy's chief aide, Roy Cohn. A closeted gay man, Cohn would angrily denounce any attempt to "out" him until the day he died of AIDS-related illnesses decades later.
In questioning one of McCarthy's assistants, Welch asked him if he was contending that a certain photograph had come from "a pixie." Unwisely trying to turn Welch's sarcasm against him, McCarthy intervened and asked Welch to define "pixie." Welch pounced. "A pixie," he gleefully explained, "is a close relative of a fairy." This devastating use of anti-gay prejudice to demean Cohn added greatly to Welch's reputation and went wholly unrebuked even by those liberals who rightly considered themselves America's staunchest opponents of bigotry.
I was among the nonrebukers. I was glad to see Welch score heavily against the McCarthy side. I accepted the widespread contempt for homosexuals as an indelible fact of life. It never occurred to me to fault Welch for expressing it. Indeed, those hearings—in which an anti-gay slur played such a highly praised part—made a very favorable impression on me and kindled my interest in public life.
That interest was greatly intensified by the murder of Emmett Till. Till, an African American from Chicago, was about my age. While he was visiting relatives in Mississippi, some men thought he had been disrespectful to a white woman. No one alleged that he had done more than whistle at her, and even that was disputed, but the price he paid was to be brutally murdered. It was clear that local law enforcement knew who had killed him. They had no objection to his death, and certainly no intention of doing anything to the killers. I was outraged. I soon learned that the federal government could do little to prevent such horrors because Southern senators had successfully filibustered antilynching laws passed by the House. I took from this an enduring belief in the need for a strong federal government. After all, Southern racists were able to protect murderers only because their legislators exploited fears of centralized power. Changing this reality would be an important goal for me.
Civil liberties and civil rights were not the only causes that inspired strong convictions. My parents were not involved in politics, but they were staunch liberals. In our very Jewish but largely secular household, the nearest thing we had to a Bible was the then very liberal New York Post. I supported the Franklin Roosevelt–Harry Truman tradition of active government intervention to make our society a fair one. My interests did not become wholly political, but they broadened. By the 1954 midterm elections, I was rooting equally for the Democrats and the Yankees.
I was also thinking more often about how much I would like to take part in governing. The fast-paced verbal combat I'd seen on TV appealed to me. I was good at talking in class, arguing politics and sports with my peers, and making people laugh, often at the expense of my debate adversaries. After the Till murder, I also wanted to make America conform more closely to my ideals.
But I was a Jewish homosexual. While I planned to keep my sexual orientation a secret, it was too late to conceal my Jewishness—I had already outed myself with a bar mitzvah. In 1954, anti-Semitism was still a significant problem facing Jews in our choice of careers. We were rarities in elected office and held congressional seats almost entirely in areas with large Jewish populations—a few neighborhoods in a handful of big cities. The one exception—Senator Richard Neuberger of Oregon—was widely known because he was so unusual. But Jews were not hindered when it came to achieving appointed office—"Jew Deal" was one of the epithets thrown at FDR's administration. Knowing this, I figured that I could work as someone's aide—as long as I kept my sexuality hidden.
* * *
In 1956, I volunteered to work on Adlai Stevenson's second presidential campaign. It wasn't fun, but it was the beginning of my education in political reality. Bayonne is a blue-collar community in New Jersey's Hudson County, very close to New York City. The population was overwhelmingly ethnic—Polish, Irish, and Italian—and Catholic. Politically, it was the domain of one of America's most ruthless and corrupt political machines. (Hoboken, a few miles from Bayonne and very much like it, was accurately portrayed in the 1954 movie On the Waterfront.) I naïvely expected to be a small cog in a well-oiled campaign on behalf of our Democratic nominee. In fact, the Democrats who controlled the county had no great sympathy for Stevenson and even less for the idea of liberals getting involved in politics. The Volunteers for Stevenson effort I joined had been set up by the machine under the leadership of a reliable political lieutenant and was given little to do. It soon dawned on me that not all Democrats shared my passion for advancing the liberal agenda—protecting its fiefdom was far more important for the county organization.
The organization's concerns turned out to be well founded. Across the bay in New York, Stevenson campaign alumni led by Eleanor Roosevelt would stick together and eventually overthrow the Tammany Hall machine. In 1961, Carmine DeSapio, the legendary Tammany Hall boss and Greenwich Village district leader, lost a primary to a leader of the new "reformers." When DeSapio attempted a comeback two years later, he lost to another political newcomer, Edward Koch.
The Hudson County machine proved less vulnerable. But its leaders could see that a cultural chasm was opening between the college-educated progressives who were Stevenson's most devoted fans and the white working-class voters who were their mainstays. After one of Stevenson's eloquent, intellectually sophisticated speeches, a supporter told him he would "get the votes of all the thinking people." "Thank you, madam," he replied, "but I need a majority." As with Joseph Welch, a widely admired and oft-quoted remark was more than a clever quip—it was an expression of a deeper political reality. The condescension in Stevenson's comment did not bother his admirers, but it did not help him with the wider public.
Such tensions would remain submerged for the next few years. In 1960, John F. Kennedy's charisma and ethnoreligious appeal kept them at bay, and in 1964, Barry Goldwater's self-acknowledged conservative extremism rendered them irrelevant. But by 1966, the alienation of the white working class had become a serious problem for Democrats, as it remains. Today, most white men vote for Republican presidential candidates even in races that Democrats win. The only identifiable groups of white men who vote reliably for Democrats are Jews and gays.
In 1956, the same year I worked for Stevenson, the Soviet Union brutally suppressed the revolt against tyranny in Hungary. It confirmed my conviction that America, with all of its faults, was morally superior to the Soviet system, and that helping nations resist Communist domination was a valid objective. At the time, my revulsion did not seem to me controversial. It struck me as entirely consistent with my liberal views—Hungary, after all, was Emmett Till multiplied by tens of thousands. Given its earlier suppression of dissent in East Germany, and its crackdown in Poland, I believed—then and subsequently—that the Soviet Union was indeed the head of an evil empire, and I was never one of the liberals who mocked Ronald Reagan for saying so. It was not until I entered Harvard, in September 1957, that I learned that my judgment was not universally shared by others on the left side of the political divide.
* * *
This was not the only difference between my version of liberalism and the views I encountered in Cambridge. In Bayonne, I saw the political world divided neatly into liberals—mostly Democrats—and conservatives—mostly Republicans, with the large exception of the Southern defenders of racism. Now, for the first time, I encountered people who were to my left—not only in their attitude toward the Soviet Union but also in their view of America's cultural and economic situation.
My relationship to ideologues on my left is well illustrated by my reaction to the folk singer Pete Seeger. Though I disagreed with the political message of his lyrics, like most of my schoolmates, I was appalled when Harvard president Nathan Pusey inexplicably banned him from performing a concert in 1961 because Seeger had refused to answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee about any Communist affiliation. This act of censorship struck us as particularly strange because Pusey had come to Harvard from Wisconsin, where he had distinguished himself by standing up to Senator McCarthy at the height of his strength. In the face of the widespread opposition, Pusey compromised, announcing that Seeger would be allowed to sing from a Harvard stage but not make a speech. Since Seeger communicated his views most effectively in his songs, Pusey was alone in thinking that he had saved face, and the concert proceeded with little further controversy.
A year later, when I heard Seeger sing "Little Boxes," I recognized the gulf that divided me from many others on the left. The song was a mockery of the postwar housing that had been built for working-class and lower-middle-class Americans. "Little boxes on the hillside," the lyrics went. "And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same." At one concert I attended at Harvard, most of the audience—filling Harvard's largest venue—appeared to find this a hilariously accurate critique. They were oblivious of the fact that these "little boxes" had been built on a large scale to be affordable by families who would not otherwise have been able to be homeowners. The aesthetic disdain Seeger and many of my fellow students felt for these units was not, I knew, shared by the occupants, most of whom were happy—and proud—to own them. These occupants were, after all, the kinds of people I had grown up with in Bayonne and whom I had dealt with pumping gas at my father's Jersey City truck stop. And I knew they disagreed completely with Seeger's critique. The mass production of homes for working families was an example of our capitalist system's efficiency. But Seeger, and many of his listeners, preferred to think that the capitalist profit-making system was depriving people with limited incomes of the chance to live in large, individually designed houses—which they of course could not afford. When I insisted that the inhabitants of this "ticky-tacky" were very satisfied with their "little boxes," I was often told that they did not have the knowledge—or the sensibility—to know they were being mistreated.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Frank by Barney Frank. Copyright © 2015 Barney Frank. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
1. FROM BAYONNE TO BOSTON,
2. CITY HALL,
3. BEACON HILL,
4. THE CONGRESSMAN,
5. COMING OUT,
6. THE TRUE STORY OF DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL,
7. WELCOME TO AN EARMARK,
8. DEFENDING CLINTON,
9. THE UNNECESSARY CRISIS,
10. REFORMING WALL STREET,
11. TRIUMPHS, SETBACKS, AND LOVE,
Appendix 1: Who Did What on Subprime Lending and Regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
Appendix 2: Conservative Support for Subprime Loans to Minority and Very Low-Income People Before the Economic Crisis,
Acknowledgments,
Index,
Photographs,
A Note About the Author,
Also by Barney Frank,
Copyright,
Interviews
Barnes & Noble Review Interview with Barney Frank
In Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage, Barney Frank delves into his life's great balance: that of being a gay man and being a congressional Democratic representative of Massachusetts. Over the course of his forty years in office, Rep. Frank fought for housing for low-income people, equal rights for the LGBT community, and financial reform. The latter came to a head when he became chairman of the House Financial Services Committee — responsible for overseeing the insurance, banking, and housing industries — just as the financial crisis struck in 2007. His headline victories include passing the Dodd-Frank Act, improving accountability and transparency on Wall Street, and fighting tirelessly for 2011's repeal of the army's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy.
Frank explains the author's attitude toward his sexuality growing up ("I accepted the widespread contempt for homosexuals as an indelible fact of life"); the nuances of legislating in Congress ("There is a mistaken notion that legislators often trade specific favors with each other. That is very rarely the case. . . . Rather, I tried to do as many favors as I could and to respond to requests. Then, when I did have to ask colleagues to cast a vote that might be politically difficult, I hoped they would at least think about it in the context of their interest in maintaining their ongoing rapport with me"); and the difficult task of affecting change among hundreds of people equally passionate and strong-willed as he. His language thick with political reference — those serving in various positions and branches, committee names, bills — Frank's points remain clear, including his central thesis: that as popular opinion of the LGBT community has soared, that of the federal government has plummeted.
Rep. Frank took some time to talk with us about his memoir, life in Congress, and how to be a young, politically minded individual today. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation. — Gili Malinsky
The Barnes & Noble Review: The political memoir, of course, is not new. Lots of politicians write books. How did you strive to make yours unique?
Barney Frank: Well, I think the story has some uniqueness. I was the first member of Congress, voluntarily, to come out as gay. And I do think that perspective of starting out thinking that I was never going to be able to be influential on this great thing called government, this powerful societal force, because I was gay, and ending up being influential in what had no longer been a powerful source. . . . I think that perspective is somewhat unusual.
And there was one totally serendipitous piece. You know, you tend to have prominent reputations, for good or for ill, when there are crises. I succeeded to be the senior Democrat on the Financial Services Committee — not through any merit of my own but because one guy died and another guy got thrown out by his own legislature. So I happened to be in this very powerful position, it turns out, when its jurisdiction became the center of the universe (beginning in 2007 and 2008, with the crisis going on). So that's another thing that gave me this unique perspective.
BNR: You talk a lot about how seemingly random events influence your life in politics more than anything.
BF: Yes, and other people's as well. This notion people have of the dedicated — it's generally a man — the young man who knows he wants to be the president. He plans and plots and he does this and he does that — but there's a lot more accident involved. Almost every important politician has that job because of some decision made by somebody else that he or she couldn't influence. What you have to do is be able to take advantage of those opportunities. But you can't create them.
BNR: In the book, you mentioned counsel Joseph Welch's use of terms like "pixie" and "fairy" during the Army-McCarthy hearings, making it clear that public opinion toward gays was not favorable. Why, knowing what the general sentiment about homosexuality was, including in government, did you still decide to serve?
BF: Because it was very important to me to try to make the world a better place. I really was motivated by that. You mentioned one of two formative events. The other was the murder of Emmett Till [in which there were no consequences for the murderers]. I was just outraged that in my country that could happen. The other factor is, I knew by the time I was fourteen that I'd been good at debating and arguing. I watched the Army-McCarthy hearings, and it wasn't just a fascinating spectacle to me. I said, you know, I could do that. I'd be good at that. So government, it seemed to me, was a place where I could use my strengths to accomplish the things I thought were most important.
BNR: Which trumped the fact that the agency, the government, might not necessarily accept you.
BF: Well, that canceled out. No place in America was a good place for homosexuals in 1954. You weren't welcome at restaurants, you weren't welcome in a factory. There was universal prejudice.
We have made so much progress. This notion, when I was fourteen, that I would someday marry a man as a member of Congress, was just totally bizarre. And even fifteen years ago, if I'd said I'm gonna marry a guy when I'm in Congress, people would have said, "Boy that's gonna be pretty controversial." Well, in the end, when Jim and I did get married, it was very controversial. A lot of my colleagues were very angry that I couldn't invite them.
BNR: Haha! That's great. So, as a young person who considers activism to be choices made in daily life, where to buy certain products, what language to use . . .
BF: Well, that's an important part of it. I'm wearing a suit made in New Bedford by union workers.
BNR: Right, and that's a decision you made very consciously. And I think, within my generation, there's a general feeling of our own empowerment as it pertains to the choices that we make. I wondered how government can empower us even further.
BF: Well, government is not an entity that stands apart. The government is the result of the collective decisions. And what people can do is to vote and make the government a better instrument for that empowerment. Part of the problem is that younger people don't vote now. Frankly, I think that's kind of fashionable: "Oh, [politicians] are all bums. They're all under the influence of money. They're corrupt . . . " I think Jon Stewart's approach contributes to that. Jon Stewart is very funny, and everything he says is true. But it's a partial truth. Nobody watching Jon Stewart would think that any politician did anything useful or that government ever got anything right. If you get enough of that diet, you may think, Well, what's the point of trying?
So I think there are certain things you can do personally, as an individual. Beyond that, you probably need to make some rules, and the way to do that is for people to get out there, vote, and take over the government.
I contrast Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The Tea Party was very politically effective. I regret that, because I disagree with them. I was once sort of arguing with someone from Occupy, and I said I was disappointed that I never saw a voter registration table at an Occupy site. He said, "That's not what we we're into." Well, that's too bad, because that's the most influential thing you can do.
BNR: If you really want to make change, there's a whole body that's dedicated to doing that on your behalf.
BF: Yeah. You see this in Ferguson right now. One of the things that's happening is that people are getting registered to vote. And I think you're gonna see a town with a black majority, with generally white officials, now with black officials.
BNR: In the book, you mention the influence that money can have on politics and conclude, ultimately, that real power comes from our votes. I want to talk more about the influence of money. How did your loyal list of campaign contributors affect your work in Congress, and what kind of sway do these people or organizations have?
BF: I was very lucky in that sense — my contributors were pretty much people who ideologically agreed with me. I got a lot of money from unions. I got money from people who were trying to build affordable housing. They were supporting me because I was agreeing with them, but I wasn't agreeing with them because they supported me. In other words, the members decide how to vote. And even there I don't think the money so much influences people after they are elected. The more devious problem, the more serious problem, is that money decides who gets elected in the first place. And, frankly, some of these people have enough money and they contribute enough to campaigns, that they don't have to worry about how the person's gonna vote. They helped elect somebody who's gonna vote the way they want.
BNR: So it comes from the campaigns. . . . One issue that you mentioned in the book, which I was really glad to read was pushed in Congress, was that of free trade, or regulation on imports and exports (as it pertains to buying from countries with lax child labor laws, etc.). You talk about, during the Clinton administration, demanding that Mexico establish acceptable minimum standards on workers' rights and the environment, etc. Can you talk a little bit about that?
BF: That's very much an issue where president Obama is running into a lot of opposition from Democrats. He's moved beyond where Clinton was — he does agree to put in worker rights, etc. But the problem is that trade, inherently, for a country like ours, helps the wealthier and hurts the lower-income people. So what we need, before I would support the trade, would be an agreement that the lower end, the working people, would get some compensation. That some of the money that wealthier people are gonna make would be used in various programs, to help people at the low end who are getting hurt.
BNR: Are you talking domestically or internationally?
BF: Domestically.
BNR: What about when it comes to something like fair trade, ensuring that workers abroad get fair compensation and work in sustainable ways?
BF: President Obama is doing better than Clinton in insisting on those fair trade things. He is insisting on a binding requirement [regarding] worker and environmental standards before we allow those goods in. That's important. All I'm saying is that's not enough. We also have to worry about what happens in the country. But I do give Obama credit on those fair trade–related issues. He's been pretty good.
One other thing — in the bill that we passed, I worked with Bono, who's a big crusader for poor people internationally, and we included a section that said that if you are an American company and you are extracting a mineral from some other country, gold, oil, etc., you must publish every dollar you have paid the people in that country. Which is very helpful, because what happens is corrupt rulers in countries sell off the right to mine stuff and then keep the money. So if you're an American company and you don't report everything you paid, you could be prosecuted in America. They tell me that has been helpful.
BNR: I saw the picture of you and Jim with Bono in the book!
BF: Yeah, we've been very close with him.
BNR: I hope that you got free tickets to a show.
BF: Jim did. I'm not a big fan.
BNR: You mentioned congressmen Allard Lowenstein and Tip O'Neill as examples of politicians you appreciated for their passionate advocacy, sophistication, and insightfulness. What makes a good leader?
BF: Recognition that leadership is a two-way street. That you are only a good leader if you can depend on people to follow you and that you have to give them incentives to do that. It's not enough just to be right. If you want to lead people you have to make sure that you are as supportive of their needs, so that in those areas where you're gonna lead, they have an interest in following.
BNR: Why are people entering politics today?
BF: Oh, the same reasons. I don't think there's any generational difference. I think it's a combination of varying degrees. It's ideology. It's a sense of you would like to make the world a better place from your perspective.
BNR: So people are generally doing it for the greater good.
BF: Oh yeah, most of the people most of the time are, yes.
BNR: Or at least what they perceive of as the greater good. Obviously there are differences on that.
BF: Oh yes, I was just gonna add that. That's correct.
BNR: What's your favorite victory in politics?
BF: Because of the way that it happened, I felt pretty good about the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell." I think we made a real difference.
BNR: What advice do you offer the youngest members of Congress?
BF: Learn the rules. Rules are very important when you have large numbers of people. People make fun of parliamentary procedure — it's essential to get things done and if you know it well, you have an advantage in getting your goals. And, two, you have to pick out several things to concentrate on. You can't do everything all the time. And, three, recognize that you're gonna have to get ahead by your colleagues' voluntary support. So, yes, you should push hard. But remember, you are dependent for success on the volunteered cooperation of a lot of other very strong-minded people.
—April 21, 2015