Corporate critic ascending to top of key House panel

He’s been a leading critic of runaway executive pay and an advocate for investors’ rights. And now, after years in the legislative back seat, Rep. Barney Frank is getting the steering wheel.

With Democrats taking control of the House in Tuesday’s election, the blunt-spoken Massachusetts congressman is in line to become chairman of the Financial Services Committee. That would give him -- and his party -- a powerful perch from which to promote issues and advance legislation that Republicans have been able to keep out of the spotlight.

“It’s going to be very, very interesting with Barney Frank up there,” said Howard B. Glaser, a mortgage industry consultant in Washington who lauds Frank for his command of the issues.

As chairman, Frank, 66, would help shape an agenda that would probably include requiring more detailed disclosure of executive pay packages and giving shareholders a say in compensation plans, including the right to veto the lucrative severance plans often called golden parachutes.

He is also likely to push for raising the minimum wage, expanding access to affordable housing and increasing consumer protection on a variety of fronts, including mortgage lending.

In a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Frank called the election a “repudiation” of Republican policies. At the same time, he said he was open to changes in the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law, so long as they stopped short of weakening “its central purpose” of protecting investors.

Frank brings an acid wit to the political battleground along with liberal views. Rumpled and bespectacled, this intellectual warrior is described in the Almanac of American Politics as “political theorist and pit bull all at the same time.”

He has derided antiabortion politicians as believing “that life begins at conception and ends at birth.” To make a point about stock-option accounting, he managed to cite the Massachusetts same-sex marriage law: “In both cases, a lot of people predicted chaos would erupt and nothing happened at all.”

Arguing that President Bush has refused to face hard realities about the economy and the war in Iraq, he recalled the tale of the boy who cried wolf. However, Bush, he said, claimed falsely that all is well: “He’s the boy who cried, ‘Nice doggie.’ ”

Republicans have tried to return the favor. Vice President Dick Cheney rallied GOP crowds on the campaign trail by citing Frank’s promotion to chairman to illustrate how a Democratic victory would take Congress in the wrong direction.

In a statement Wednesday, Frank hinted strongly that the election results will spur his committee to stake out new territory.

“Yesterday, Americans voted for change and Democrats now have the responsibility to lead the House in a way that brings back civility and a sense of democracy to the legislative process while advancing progressive values,” Frank said.

Whatever fears Republicans may have, Frank is expected to pursue his goals pragmatically and try to work cooperatively with the GOP, an approach he has taken before.

As ranking Democrat on the Financial Services panel, for example, Frank established a rapport with Chairman Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio). In the mid-1990s, Frank joined forces with then-Rep. Christopher Cox, an Orange County Republican, to sell off the anachronistic U.S. helium reserve.

Frank does his homework, says Glaser, the mortgage consultant.

“While some industry players have expressed concern about the direction Chairman Frank might take the committee, we believe that Mr. Frank is a pragmatic lawmaker who listens to all sides of an issue and understands the industries within his jurisdiction far better than many members of Congress,” he said.

Frank was elected to Congress in 1980 and has handily won his reelection contests, even after revelations in 1989 that he had shared his Capitol Hill apartment with a man who claimed to run a prostitution service without Frank’s knowledge.

Some of Frank’s priorities are known. He has been adamant that government policies should be more responsive to the economic needs of working families. He is particularly concerned about housing affordability and the problem of people being squeezed out of neighborhoods that have become too costly.

As a committee member, Frank introduced legislation to give shareholders the authority to approve or reject CEOs’ pay packages. Oxley kept that bill off the agenda.

Given the financial stresses on working people, Frank said recently, “it is amazing to me that executive pay continues to increase at extraordinary levels.”

Whatever the issue, the acerbic congressman is certain to be a prominent, and distinctive, national voice between now and the next election.

In a recent letter to his Democratic colleagues, he argued that working families were not reaping the gains of economic growth, despite White House claims. And he suggested a way to think about it, based on an old Marx Brothers remark: “Who are you going to believe -- me or your wallet?”