Frank Formally Reprimanded for Ethics Lapse

After three hours of uncommonly rancorous debate, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to formally reprimand Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of two openly gay congressmen, for ethics violations stemming from his relationship with a male prostitute.

The 408-18 vote to reprimand came after the House easily turned aside an attempt by Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) to expel Frank, a liberal who is widely regarded as one of the brightest members of Congress. The House also rejected a motion to censure, which is one step above a reprimand.

“I think I had a decent chance to present my case,” Dannemeyer said after his motion to expel failed by a 38-390 vote. Although the tally was “less than I had hoped for,” the Orange County conservative said he did not have his eye on vote totals when he moved against Frank. “I did it because it was the right thing to do,” he said.

Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), who represents southern Orange County, joined Dannemeyer in voting to expel Frank. Reps. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach), who represents northeastern Orange County, voted against expulsion but for censure.

In an emotional speech on the House floor, before the vote to reprimand, Frank apologized to his colleagues. “These mistakes were mine. . . . All mine,” he said. “I should have known better. Now I do. But it’s a little too late.”

Frank, 50, attributed his ethical problems to a 34-year effort to keep secret his homosexuality, an effort that he abandoned three years ago with a public announcement that he is gay.

“Three years ago I decided that concealment did not work,” Frank told members who packed the House chamber. “I wish I had decided it earlier.”

After the votes, Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House ethics committee, told reporters, “I’m very pleased the (House) stayed with the committee.”

Of Frank, Dixon said, “I think he indicated he made a serious mistake, but he wanted to let people know why he had done so, and that is because he is a gay person.”

The ethics committee, formally known as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, recommended a reprimand for Frank last Friday in a 57-page report that capped a 10-month investigation of Frank’s relationship with admitted prostitute Stephen L. Gobie, whom Frank had placed on his personal staff at his own expense.

A reprimand is the least serious of three punishments that the full House can administer, followed by censure and expulsion. Reprimand and censure require majority votes, while it takes two-thirds of the House to expel a member.

Only four representatives ever have been expelled, three of whom were rebel sympathizers at the outset of the Civil War. The House has censured 22 members and reprimanded six.

The ethics committee found that Frank acted improperly by fixing 33 parking tickets, largely accumulated by Gobie while he drove Frank’s car on personal business. In addition, the committee found that Frank wrote a 1986 memorandum on Gobie’s behalf that contained “misleading statements” about Gobie and his relationship with Frank. The memorandum ultimately wound up in the files of a Virginia prosecutor.

Specifically, Frank wrote that he met Gobie through mutual friends, when in fact, their relationship began in 1985 after Frank contacted Gobie through a male escort service. And Frank said that Gobie was adhering to the terms of his probation on drug and sodomy charges, when Frank knew that Gobie continued to work as a prostitute.

But the committee rejected charges that Frank knew that Gobie was using his Capitol Hill townhouse as a base for a prostitution ring.

That assertion was disputed by Dannemeyer, one of the most severe congressional critics of homosexuality and homosexual activism.

“What’s going on in America is a cultural war,” Dannemeyer told his colleagues. “Do we tolerate, do we condone a member of this body who knowingly permits a house of prostitution to be operated out of his residence?”

Dornan was among the members who joined in the attack on Frank.

“My brother’s a high school teacher. . . . This would have destroyed his career, anything even remotely resembling it,” Dornan told Frank. “My prior careers: As an Air Force officer--Out! Finished! As a broadcaster on television, if I wouldn’t resign, I’d be fired. . . . I am going to vote for expulsion because you didn’t have the honor and decency to resign.”

Dannemeyer’s assertion that the ethics committee had ignored evidence that Frank knew Gobie was using his home for prostitution brought an emotional response from Dixon.

“You have just heard the most edited, selected garbage that has ever been put forth, in my opinion, in this House,” Dixon said, his voice rising. Dannemeyer “insults the intelligence and literacy of the members . . . who have read the (committee’s) report.”

Dixon also complained that Dannemeyer, in a letter circulated Wednesday to members of the House, had revealed the names of several “innocent witnesses” involved in the Frank case, names that Dixon’s committee had attempted to keep secret.

“Mr. Dannemeyer, you have done a mean and evil thing,” Dixon said.

At a press conference after the votes, Frank said he believed Dannemeyer’s attempt to expel him was due largely to the fact that he is a homosexual.

“There is something about homosexuality that sets Mr. Dannemeyer to vibrating, I don’t know what it is,” Frank said. He added later, “I think that there is a growing sentiment in the House of Representatives that Mr. Dannemeyer and reality only rarely coincide.”

After Dannemeyer’s motion was defeated, the House turned down 141-287 a motion by House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) that would have had the effect of censuring Frank. Despite Gingrich’s call for tougher sanctions, he termed the proceedings “tragic” and said Frank “has been one of our brightest and most energetic members.”

Cox said he voted for censure rather than expulsion because “I think censure is the appropriate sanction. The standard for expulsion over the last 200 years has been conviction of a criminal offense.”

Rohrabacher said only the voters in Frank’s district have the right to turn him out of office. “I believe it’s up to us (in the House) to set standards for the way our body operates, but it’s not up to us to decide who will sit.”