Barney Frank is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was the Executive Assistant to the mayor of Boston from 1968-1970; he was the Administrative Assistant to former Congressman Michael Harrington from 1971-1972 and a Massachusetts State Representative from 1973-1980. Frank was a U.S. Congressman, representing the 4th District of Massachusetts from 1981-2013.
 

As Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, from 2007-2010, he was the co-author of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
Act, the regulatory overhaul signed into law in July 2010. In 1987 he became the first Member of Congress voluntarily to acknowledge that he is gay, and in 2012 became the first sitting Member of Congress to marry a same-sex partner, James Ready.
 

He has written two books: Speaking Frankly, in 1992, a critique of some aspects of the Democrats approach to public policy; and a political memoir published
in 2015 titled Frank: From the Great Society to Same Sex Marriage. The book was nominated for a Triangle Award and co-won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. He has also written chapters in two other books, one on LGBT rights and more recently on the response to the financial crisis.
 

He has taught at Harvard, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts Boston and the University of
Massachusetts Dartmouth.
 

Before joining the government, he was a political activist, including his participation as a volunteer in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964.

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