Barney Frank - Pre-congressional Career

Pre-congressional Career

In 1972, Frank was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he served for eight years. Frank made a name for himself in the mid-1970s as a political defender of the Combat Zone, Boston’s notorious red light district. Neighborhoods in Frank’s district bordered the Combat Zone. As a means of dealing with crime in the area (including violence, police corruption and the infiltration by organized crime), Frank introduced a bill into the Massachusetts General Court that would have legalized the sex-for-hire business but kept it quarantined in a red light district, which would have been moved to Boston’s Financial District. The bill, which had the support of Boston’s Police Commissioner, never came up for a vote. Later, when Frank was running for Congress, opponents erroneously portrayed him as having attempted to permit red light districts in all Bay State communities.

While in state and local government, Frank taught, part-time, at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Boston University. He published numerous articles on politics and public affairs; in 1992, he published Speaking Frankly, an essay on the role the Democratic Party should play in the 1990s. In 1979, Frank was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts.