Former Rep. Barney Frank, the first member of Congress to come out as gay, died Tuesday, less than a month after he entered hospice care at his home in Maine. He was 86.
Frank’s sister confirmed his death to NBC News on Wednesday.
“He was, above all else, a wonderful brother,” his sister Doris Breay told NBC Boston. “I was lucky to be his sister.”
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Frank, a Democrat who represented southern Massachusetts in the House for 32 years, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, his family said.
He was best known in Congress for his efforts to overhaul Wall Street regulations following the 2008 financial crisis, and for his LGBTQ+ advocacy.
His early career
Born Barnett Frank on March 31, 1940, in New Jersey, Frank was a Harvard University graduate who taught undergraduate government classes while pursuing a PhD. He gave up his studies a year short of his doctorate, however, when he left to work as chief of staff to Boston Mayor Kevin White.
He later became an assistant to Rep Michael Harrington, a Massachusetts Democrat, before running for an open seat in the Massachusetts state legislature. Although the district had leaned Republican for generations, Frank won the 1972 election and established himself as an advocate for liberal causes. His first bill would have prohibited discrimination in housing and employment on the basis of sexual orientation.
He served three terms in the legislature before winning a congressional race in1980. He would win re-election 15 times before retiring in 2013.
In 1987, Frank became the first member of Congress to voluntarily declare he was gay.
He decided to publicly acknowledge his sexual orientation after another lawmaker, Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., died of AIDS. Frank said he wanted to avoid the kind of speculation about McKinney’s sexuality that followed his death.
“There was such an unseemly scuffle after he died,” Frank told The New York Times. He said he did not want people asking, “Was he or wasn’t he?”
Frank’s sexuality played into a scandal in 1989 after he was accused of hiring a male prostitute as a personal employee and using his office to benefit the man. The House voted to reprimand Frank, but stopped short of imposing a more serious punishment.
Involvement in the 2008 financial crisis
Frank became chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in 2007, just before a housing bubble burst, driving the country into a lengthy recession.
Critics claimed Frank’s support of mortgages for low-income borrowers contributed to the collapse.
However, in 2009, Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., coauthored the Dodd-Frank Act, a package of regulations and reforms of the financial services and consumer finance industries.
That bill was signed into law later that year.
Making history
Fifteen years after becoming the first member of Congress to announce he was gay, Frank made history again.
In July 2012, he married his longtime partner, Jim Ready, becoming the first member of Congress to enter into a same-sex marriage.
Frank had already decided not to seek re-election that year. But he said he wanted to get married before retiring, hoping it would normalize same-sex marriage among his fellow lawmakers.
“I think it’s important that my colleagues interact with a married gay man,” Frank said.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Frank was the first openly gay member of Congress. Frank was the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay. This article has been updated to reflect the change.
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