Online gambling´s U.S. political white knight to retire
News on 29 Nov 2011
News on 29 Nov 2011
One of online gambling’s most consistent supporters in the US Congress, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, has confirmed that when his sixteenth term in Congress concludes in 2013 he will not seek re-election.
The Democrat said at a press conference Monday afternoon that he had originally intended to seek one more term in Congress, but changed his mind in part because the state’s new re-districting, and his desire to write.
“I was planning to run again, and then the congressional redistricting came,” he said at a press conference in Massachusetts.
Frank added that he wasn’t particularly interested in waging a full-fledged campaign again — particularly fundraising — in a district that was mostly half new to him.
Frank has had a distinguished career in politics, although he is mostly known in the industry for his persistent attempts to legalise online gambling in the United States .
As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, the veteran politician co-authored 2010’s financial regulatory reform law, and since the Republican takeover of the House he serves as the committee’s ranking Democratic member.
The Congressman said he had been flirting with retirement for some time, and denied that Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next fall played a major role in his decision to decline re-election.
MSNBC reported that Rep. Frank has long been a lightning rod for critics, in no small part because of his blunt comments to the press, and sometimes cantankerous engagements with Republicans. But for conservatives hoping that Frank fades into a quiet retirement, the outgoing congressman promised anything but that.
“I’m not retiring from advocacy of public policy,” he said.
Frank’s writing ambitions include the completion of an unfinished Ph.D. dissertation. He said it was unlikely that he would return to practicing law, and he also rejected the idea that he might become a political lobbyist.
“One of the advantages to me of not running for office is I don’t even have to try to pretend to be nice to people I don’t like … and the notion of being a lobbyist, and having to go and try to be nice to people I don’t like — it would be ridiculous.”
