Barney Frank, Visionary for LGBT Community
Barney Frank was born on March 31, 1940 in Bayonne, New Jersey. Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, is considered the most prominent gay politician in the United States, but he came from humble Jewish roots. He was born Barnett Frank to Elsie and Samuel Frank. His father ran a Jersey City truck stop and was later jailed for one year for refusing to testify against his brother, who was involved in a kickback scheme. Despite the incident, Frank still did well in school.
Frank graduated from Harvard College in 1962, and later pursued graduate studies there, working toward a Doctor of Philosophy degree in government and teaching undergraduate classes. He went on to become the chief assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White, and later worked for Massachusetts Congressman Michael Harrington. In 1972, Frank was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He served in that capacity for the following eight years, all the while attending Harvard Law School.
By the late 1970s, Frank had decided to pursue higher office. In 1980, he ran for and won the U.S. House of Representatives 4th Congressional District seat, which he continued to win every election thereafter. He announced in November 2011 that he would not seek re-election in 2012.
The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into federal law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. Passed as a response to the late-2000s recession, it brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression. It made changes in the American financial regulatory environment that affect all federal financial regulatory agencies and almost every part of the nation's financial services industry.The law was initially proposed by the Obama Administration in June 2009, when the White House sent a series of proposed bills to Congress. A version of the legislation was introduced in the House in July 2009. On December 2, 2009, revised versions were introduced in the House of Representatives by Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, and in the Senate Banking Committee by former Chairman Chris Dodd. Due to their involvement with the bill, the conference committee that reported on June 25, 2010, voted to name the bill after the two members of Congress.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is legislation proposed in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with at least 15 employees.