Barney Frank Had the Right Career

In the wake of Barney Frank's announced retirement, I'm seeing a lot of suggestions that are based, I think, on misunderstandings of Frank's strengths and of the various different skills needed for different roles. So: we have Tim Noah suggesting Frank for Secretary of Treasury; Andrew Sullivan said that "He should have been Speaker, and in a less homophobic world, he would have been"; and apparently someone today suggested he should be HUD Secretary, which he shot down.

I'm probably as big a fan of Frank as anyone, but I think all of this is mistaken for two reasons. First, because his skills were not a good match for those jobs...among other things, you really can't have a Treasury Secretary who is always shooting off his mouth. House leadership? Again, message discipline, rather than rhetorical cleverness, is what's called for in these jobs. Also, I really have no idea how well Frank is suited for running a bureaucracy (as he would be doing at Treasury) or at the kinds of partisan organizing that party leadership is responsible for. What Frank has demonstrated he's good at is legislating, and at speaking forcefully about liberal ideas and specific issues and programs. Those are important skills, but they're the skills of, well, a legislator, as he basically said in yesterday's announcement. As far as I know, the best Speakers of the modern era, Tip O'Neill and Nancy Pelosi, didn't particularly have those skills; for that matter, neither does the current Speaker, John Boehner, who as I've said seems to be pretty good at the job.

And as I sort of said yesterday, and this is the second reason: being a legislator is a big deal. Being an effective committee chair, and before that (pre-1995) a subcommittee chair, is important. There's a tendency that I hear a lot of that the actual important Members of Congress are the ones in the leadership, and no one else really matters much. That's completely wrong in the Senate, and it's mostly wrong in the House. Now, it is true that in the minority party there's very little to be done, but majority-party chairs and subcommittee chairs really do matter. And not all of them are good, by any means, and so it makes quite a bit of difference to the government and the nation to have serious, effective legislators in those positions.

When Congress works well (and in many ways it did during the 111th), it's not just about party leaders; it really takes a lot of Members, in both Houses, with various areas of expertise and lots of legislative skill.

Barney Frank should absolutely be celebrated. Not as a great political talent who might have been or should have been, but as he actually was: a terrific Member of Congress.

That Old Old Senate (and House)

(Updated)

I've been a little negligent on this front; I never got around to talking about the CRS report about the demographic characteristics of the current 112th Congress, especially on age. After, that is, I spent a good part of last year speculating about it. The result was that the 112th fell short of the record oldest Congress, which was the 111th, but is still older than the 110th...here are the numbers (in years):

Senate  112th  111th 110th   House 112th 111th 110th
            62.2    63.1   61.7                56.7  57.2   55.9

This comes up today because Barney Frank announced that he's retiring after this term. I wrote a bit about Frank over at Greg's place this morning, but in this context I'll emphasize that he will turn 72 in March, so his retirement helps a little as far as average age is concerned. Of course, Congresses elected in years that end in 0 typically have above-average retirements, thanks to redistricting and reapportionment...Frank is the second MA Member of the House to call it quits so far.

Let's see...there are eight retiring Senators. Average age? 70.6. That helps! (Note: I'm just using what Roll Call posts for age; no idea what the "as of..." date is for them, but it's close enough for now). Frank is the 9th Member of the House to retire; average age is 63.3 -- curse, you, 38 year old Dan Boren!

Meanwhile, there are six Members who are 60+ who are leaving the House to run for other offices, including three running for the Senate. Yikes! You can be sure that Plain Blog will be rooting against all of them, all things being equal. For what it's worth, the average age of the 15 Members leaving the House to run for other office is 55, so odds are that replacing them will slightly lower the overall age of the House (new Members this term averaged 48.2 years old).

I figure I should mention...I'm not against old legislators in general; in fact, I think it's very healthy for Congress to feature a good number of experienced, senior Members with long, productive careers. I just think the US right now has way, way, way too many oldsters, and not nearly enough in their 30s and 40s. Or for that matter their 20s.

(Updated, numbers fixed)

Barney Frank

I was looking up an amendment to the CR last week that apparently defunded the "Fairness Doctrine Czar" (no, of course there's no such thing as a Fairness Doctrine czar, but that's not the point here) when I came across:

PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman

The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman will state his inquiry

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. What's the text of the amendment? This is the one we were given. Could I get a reading of the text of the amendment, or could I get a copy of the amendment?

The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman may ask unanimous consent for that.

Mr. CARTER. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Excuse me. Does this have anything to do with cement? If you mention cement, I'm not yielding.

Mr. CARTER. I promise not to mention cement.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Then I yield. Because where I come from, cement was not good news for the people who were put into it.

I yield to the gentleman.

I'm sure there's a good explanation for it, but I think we're all better off imagining it instead of having me look it up and ruin the fun. If you follow the link, you can also read Frank on Czarinas vs. Czars, and his advice to Rep. Hal Rogers to "work out his Lenin fantasy."