[applause] thank you and welcome barney frank. First ill ask some questions and then well go to questions from the audience which i have one of these cards, so i will access or reject them. [applause] i was hoping you can say a little bit about the two stories that you tried to tell, the political stories that you tried to tell in this book which is about your life and also political work. Its as i start writing that there are two things. I was a normal teenager, my father, working programs. [inaudible] so these hearings were fascinated to me. I also decided something i have to get into politics. I was debating and arguing as i was a kid. Better than some adults. [laughs] i could do that. At the same time i realized [inaudible] so i began to say, i want to be influential, but i never will be because im gay. By the time i retired there was a disparity from being gave and politics, but the order has reversed. [laughs] i get married. I was the first member of congress to have the samesex marriage. That turned out to be much more popular than the Financial Services [laughs] as i got to be more influential in government, government got to be less influence in society. What i want to say thats the part [applause] you have a very interesting analysis of who has lost faith in government and why. So if you could Say Something about Economic Issues that underlie yeah, there were some people who dont believe the government. To some extent its economic if you have very, very wealthy, you probably have some incentive not to want to government to get vol because you will contribute. This is one we talk about, started in the early 80s with the reagan democrats, dont have very highend skills, the First Response that many people had was i thought maybe that was there was a social issue. God, guns and gays, etc. I wish they werent but they are. There was no i dont know Many Democrats because they supported samesex marriage. I really dont know. Even abortion and religion. I think the fundamental problem we have and they have become antigovernment because they believe so deeply in government. Follow from the end of world war ii if you were a white guy, you didnt have to worry about prejudice, you could go to a factory and by the time you had a second home, you could put your kids through college and decent retirement. And then changes in the Economic Situation in the world and the country began to work to their disadvantage. People in that situation now found that they were in the bottom. The trade policies, thats interesting, used to be a good article of faith. You have to be of free trade. The trade had worked. Enhanced National Wealth but distributed unfairly and exacerbate some of that. I represent for 30 years southern massachusetts. [laughs] [applause] manufactured and its made in america. Go buy one if you need one. But what happened was this, workingclass people, whites saw themselves at the shortend of the stick economically. They believed in the government. The government could have helped them and didnt and they became angry. Thats because the government only cares about white people, gay people, women. The prejudice comes in in and out because people started out prejudice, they felt like we were doing these for them for other people and not them. One of the People Democrats have numbers they have four years, clinton first two and obamas first two. It doesnt work very well. Thats the dilemma. Were on a vicious cycle. People who think government should protect them. Some of you remember. The young people dont. Winchester ca cathredral. You could have done something, you didnt do anything. They believe the government could have done something. I believe gave gay rights is not an issue anymore. The anger of white working men there was one issue and controversial and plan to pursue it, the issue where guns where liberals have to cope with. There were times where there was conflict in environmental issues. Some more important than others. Climate change, you dont compromise. Preservation, it should not overwrite everything in the mix. [laughs] that was before i started thinking in these terms. Our challenges can we persuade whiteworking class and middleclass men and is that something that the Democratic Party can do in the sense of in the issue of income and inequality . What is the way for the democrats to see that its an issue some things are happening now. The minimum wages is an example. It helps everybody. One think that you are seeing a renewed democratic recognition, that is there is a direct relationship between the unions and the equality. Example, volkswagon tells tennessee that its prepared to support union. A mainstream conservative, not a tea party guy, threatness and the company twants union. They threaten the people that if they voted for a union, state money that was supposed to go to volkswagon were being withdrawn. The union lost by a fairly lost margin. If they get a union, its a concession. The tennessee republicans said if they get union it will push up wages and if they go up, it will cause upper pressure on wages throughout tennessee and the wages go up throughout tennessee, that will diminish our ability to other states. Michigan has one and indiana has one. President is talking about this. When you make it easy for people to go to Community Colleges and higher education, thats another way that you do. Infrastructure, yes, theres been some progress in the construction trade. People out there banging and digging, thats another factor. When you say when you give what senator gives us, the argument about tennessee, it seems on absurd they get we have the liberal tradition. The problem is you cant do experiments when the subject of the experiment convert to another laboratory and get better. Thats what happened. One of the most problems you see now is highways. Eisenhower put forward program. They are not willing to raise to money to keep the highway going. No, if the states want more highways, let them do it. And then they say, well, give them back the money. The conservative perfected a very nice twostep. You send things to the state. You send things back to the states and then in the state, the conservatives say, we cant do this. So you send it back to the state and you have and among the things we can do, federalism in some areas work, but when it involves expenditure for social purposes, federalism state by state becomes of our values. Im curious what you would say about the legislative solution about that. You correct the impression, thought well of him on the first level. You also make the point that he did not feel that it was possible to work against the president s agenda because it would undermine our system of government. Not only the Political Party but the issue. People who said what happened to bipartisanship. I am a member of a Minority Group that is picked on and undervalued. It is essential democratic government. The people did two things, denounced them and phoned them. You need Political Parties representing a general tendency or else politics is all personality. And thats what weve had. We had two big parties in many western democracy that recognize you need a private sector but the government should be expanded. Yeah, you need some government and politics for the first time we have a group in america that doesnt believe in the public sector. When a republican president , yes, we democrats have an incentive to give them brief, but we have incentive to cooperate because the government has to function, we have to help people. As you see with obama, they have zero incentive to cooperate with the president. Fine with them if the government breaks down. If they cause problems in the function of the government, we take bailouts. They are very unpopular. People think theyre terrible. There were five bailouts. Every single one of them was initiated by george w. Bush. Two he did by myself. Three we cooperated on. But people see us bush as president and in 2008 he comes to harry reid and nancy pelosi. On the one hand it would have been better for the democrats. It would have been worse for government. They worked with him on that. A year later, obama did not ask because we had done focus groups they had done the focus groups. You know what a focus group is, you gather people and try the problem with that is very often people dont have favorable opinions because theyre air heads. [laughs] you look at the focus groups, all the undecided people in october on the focus group. Who is undecided between obama, mccain or bush, kerry. Maybe a few people. The focus groups reported that stimulus was a bad word. So thats why it was called the economic recovery act. Recovery was a more attractive thing that stimulus. Most people would rather be stimulated than recovered. [laughs] they gave bush a stimulus. In 2008, bush said to top economic people, democratic, seven weeks before the election. I remember that. We had a great weekend plan. We were enjoying dating and i had to call him, the senate, the anniversary why on earth. [laughs] but we sit with george bush seven weeks before the election, were in terrible shape, we have to fix it Going Forward but we have no option now so we pass as the most unpopular successful thing we ever did. Democrats voted for it in the house more than republicans, so we give folks, barack obama backs it when john mccain refuses. Obama becomes president and it goes in 2008 there was a bipartisanship. But obama said thats the end of bipartisanship. They dont they use to not care so much if the government get checked out. Now a number of them its a good thing. Basically here is the deal, the story of king solomon. Cut the baby and see if i care. Thats the problem. We have the be the ones that say you cant do that. Well, youre a liberal but one of the things you talk about in the book and it seems to date back to your experience when in 1964 you were part of freedom summer in mississippi and you were interviewed by someone who quoted you at the time a great socialist. And you said then, i mean, i guess you were about 24, that you were not there to create a Perfect World and that you believed, i mean, in letting im not here to build a perfect society, just to ensure that the negro gets its chance to live his life its own way and then you talk about in that quote, the tactical importance of remaining realistic. If you can Say Something about that how philosophy [inaudible] what i saw with the African American movement. Martin luther king people were making fun of him. If you remember the great play green past pastures, the lord sd this and the lord said that. Mocking him as mr. High and mighty. You had most of us, i think, and this turned out to be the majority and its been replayed with lgbt people. Lgbt people who were initially oppose to marriage as a goal. Marriage is an institution that oppresses women. Why do we want that . There are people who said, look, we gays and lesbians, we want to have the same right as anybody else. There were others who said, the group can be the spear, they will understand that we should rebuild it entirely different and that there will be new communities, and the average citizen said no, i want to be like anybody else. There were people who were poor, black, they never had great support. People thought they werent being treated equally. You had the same with people in the gay community. There was a tactical different and strategic that gay people said, you know what, rossa parks never had to sit in the middle of the bus. You say, separate but equal but it aint equal. Think said they were going to allow black people in separate schools and they proved that they werent separate. They did get them admitted. Fanned you read books about Marthur Luther King he was constantly being realistic about your goals is important for a couple of reasons, one of which is because if youre unreallyic unrealistic you will move your followers. I think that finally people in the lgpt movement understood it. What do you think moving into june and a decision from the Supreme Court on gay marriage, another decision, whatever that decision is, what do you think given in congress you were never able to and it seemed unlikely that in many states theres this kind of Movement Towards religious freedom to kennedy, lgbt opinions and secondly when a lot of courts of apel appeals allowed marriages and the states asked the Supreme Court to state the decision, suspend it, the Supreme Court said, no. If it was not sure, it would have been pretty irresponsible to allow them to go forward. So i think marriage will be done by the way, among those who are hoping that the Supreme Court does this, they know wedge issue when they see them. If they come out against marriage, they look out they look target [laughs] nondiscrimination is critical. The country was still too many people were uneasy about transgender people. The next time you democratic president , we will pass nondiscrimination bill. Two things, it is not a constitutional but statutory one about any individual being able to say nondiscrimination goes against my principle. When they want to do that in arizona, you mean right the ignore the state, money municipal laws, are you crazy, people dont want to come here. Thats been very helpful. Beyond that, look, this isnt just lgbt people who will be excluded. There are people who had marriages. Do muslims have a right to say that unveil women if you look at the bill and you pass it, a woman who was not dressed will be kicked out. So i do think in the end thats we are going to win that fight politically because its damaging economicically. The first breakthrough on nondiscrimination is both sectors in the American Economy said, no, we cant have that. So im not sure a bill is passed right away but i think we will be able to defeat this. So before we go to questions from the audience, i want to say that i saw in describing your early life you were studying for a ph. D still am. [laughs] you got an unlimited extension. I did. Yeah, i dont know [laughs] i was working to and took some time to write it. I didnt know him very well. I went to work for him and he won. At the end of it he said i need you to work for me. He said, hey, you want me to be liberal but if you walk away dont complain to me about the things you want. That was pretty persuasive. Fine, i have to finish. He came out with several books, and he said okay. After you took ph. D exams you have five years to finish your thesis. I talk today kevin, you know, we will do extension beyond the five years. So that was in 1967. [laughs]. The man who would have been my representative, tom allen, is here. [applause] one question is in my ability to read peoples handwriting so forgive me. Mr. Frank how is the issue Voter Suppression into the consciousness of the large majority of American People . Its very hard to do because its concentrated against minorities and of course some people, it is republicans who make the rules to make it physically harder for people to vote. For example i have africanamerican members of the house who said my mother was born in mississippi. She had no record of her birth. They didnt give those to black people in the 20s and 30s and when you lengthen the line you can appreciate it cut down early voting. Thats facilitated by the worst decisions the Supreme Court has made to me even worse than citizens united. It was throwing out the Voting Rights act. It was the last gasp of conservative saying we dont like judicial activism. It was passed by congress and not that it was unconstitutional but they thought congress had made the right judgment about the criteria and it was a terrible thing and enabled things to be done. What we have to do is to make it clear to environmentalists, people defending medicare that if they succeeded in diminishing black votes that means fewer legislators who will be providing Climate Change and protecting medicare. It will be for supporting the rights of but let me say this i have another problem. Theres another foam form of Voter Suppression that is as vicious and clearly of the different order. I wish some of my friends on the left saying to people theres no point in voting. They are all bombs. They are all corrupt. They never listen to you. [applause] i have to say jon stewart is funny but i was once in while on the show some politician did something good because if people get a steady diet of a are all bombs whats the difference . I think that contributes to the lower turnout especially with younger people. I wish they would say in fact rule out to be the worse you think it is the more incentive you ought to have two boats to try to change it. [applause] that recalls to my mind what you say in the book and what you said here about the way the murder of emmett till inspired you to want to be, Public Servant working in public service. Do you think the name of Michael Brown in the name of aragorn and the name of Matthew Shepherd will ring for people . It will with some. The cases are different. I think the Michael Brown cases much more complicated and the guy that was indicted in new york for firing a random shot in the stairwell that ricocheted and killed someone but they are doing that with africanamericans in missouri theres no question. And like us of the brown case is more complicated but in fact the result of the election and ferguson is that more black people take office thats going to have a good message. People would say there is a point in voting so there is some of that and i hope it will also, scott walker will do this. Too many union people have been ambivalent about this. Scott walker allout attack on collective bargaining will motivate some of the union people. One of the great annoyances that troubles me is Police Departments have become very and they consistently vote for people who want to cut the money they can get a