WASHINGTON ‑ Veteran Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., an architect of the most sweeping financial reform law since the Depression, will hold a press conference Monday to answer questions about his announcement he will retire from Congress when his term ends next year, his office said in a statement.
Frank, the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, helped pass last year’s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That law ushered in sweeping changes to the municipal securities market, including restrictions on previously unregulated municipal advisors, who are required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and adhere to a fiduciary duty, meaning they must put their clients’ interests ahead of their own.
An unidentified source told The Boston Globe that a major factor in Frank’s decision is that he would have to run in a new, more conservative district in 2012.
Frank began his career in the Massachusetts State House, where he served for eight years before winning election to the U.S. Congress in 1980, according to his website.
