Reprimand for Rep. Frank : House Kills GOP Call for Expulsion

WASHINGTON — The House today reprimanded a repentant Rep. Barney Frank for his official actions on behalf of a male prostitute. Lawmakers first rejected more severe punishments proposed by Republicans.

“I’m here to offer an apology and an explanation,” the Massachusetts Democrat told a hushed audience shortly before the 408-18 vote for reprimand.

He said he took some of the actions cited by the ethics committee “to conceal my homosexuality” at a time when he had not yet made his gay lifestyle public. He apologized and added, “I should have known better. I do now, but it’s a little late.”

The House first voted 390 to 38 to reject a move by Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) to expel Frank.

More than an hour later, it voted 287 to 141 against a move by GOP Whip Newt Gingrich to censure Frank, a move that would have stripped him of his subcommittee chairmanship.

Rep. John T. Myers, ranking Republican on the ethics committee, fought to uphold the panel’s recommendation for a reprimand. He said the case had nothing to do with Frank’s homosexuality. “We are neither condemning today nor condoning that lifestyle,” he said.

Frank, 50, listened from a seat on the House floor as his fate was debated, surrounded by his Democratic colleagues from Massachusetts. Other members stopped by to pat the popular five-term lawmaker on the back.

He said in advance he would not contest the ethics committee’s recommendation.

Frank has admitted using his office for fixing parking tickets for prostitute Stephen L. Gobie, and for writing a misleading memo helpful to Gobie’s probation.

“We have set aside all of the color, all of the filth, and examined the facts,” Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles) said in arguing for the reprimand. “It is not Barney Frank’s lifestyle that should be judged here today, but rather what he did or did not do” in his official capacity.

Another committee member, Republican Rep. Fred Grandy of Iowa, said, “We do not enhance or enshrine family values by damning individuals whose lifestyles differ from our own. We are here to prosecute, not persecute.”

The House has censured 22 members in its two-century history and expelled only four. Six had been reprimanded before that action was recommended for Frank.

Dannemeyer, who needed a two-thirds vote and had not been expected to succeed in his expulsion move, asked the House, “Are there standards in our society that we will affirm for ourselves and our children? That’s the issue.”

Dannemeyer accused the ethics committee of failing to see Frank as a lawbreaker.

He said Frank knew that Gobie was operating a prostitution ring in the lawmaker’s apartment, a conclusion that was contradicted by the committee’s finding that Frank was unaware of the business.

Frank originally paid $80 for sexual relations with Gobie and then hired him in 1985 as an assistant paid with personal funds. Frank said he fired him in 1987 after learning of Gobie’s activities in the lawmaker’s apartment.