Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990 TAG: 9007270319
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The House voted 408-18 for the reprimand suggested by its Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which spent 10 months on the Frank case.
That bipartisan ethics committee concluded that the Massachusetts Democrat had acted improperly when he fixed traffic tickets for his one-time male companion, Stephen L. Gobie, and wrote a misleading memo that found its way to Virginia court officials supervising Gobie's probation.
"I should have known better," Frank said in a speech of apology to his colleagues. "I now do, but it's a little too late."
The 18 votes against reprimanding him were cast by 11 Republicans, most of whom favored more severe action, and 7 Democrats. Three members didn't vote and four members, including Frank, voted present.
All Virginia congressmen voted to reprimand, but not to expel Frank.
The House vote came one day after the Senate had voted 96-0 Wednesday to denounce Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger of Minnesota for financial misconduct.
Two Republican-led efforts for more severe punishment of Frank failed during nearly five hours of spirited, and sometimes vitriolic, debate.
Frank has acknowledged hiring Gobie for sex in 1985, and later paying him to live in and tend his Capitol Hill apartment. Their relationship ended in mid-1987, when Frank said his landlord told him Gobie was operating a male prostitution business from the apartment.
The ethics committee could find no credible evidence that Frank knew of Gobie's other activities or improperly tried to influence probation officers in Gobie's behalf.
Frank said he wrote a 1986 memo, in which he described Gobie as "kind of an administrative assistant" and a "hard-working and decent guy," at a time when he was trying to conceal his homosexuality. Frank publicly acknowledged in the summer of 1987 that he is gay.
Concealing his sexual preference was "a mistake," Frank said, "which led me to other mistakes."
Republicans seeking a more severe punishment denied they were trying to make a political issue of Frank and his lifestyle.
by CNB