FRANKS, Gary A.

FRANKS, Gary A., a Representative from Connecticut; born in Waterbury, New Haven County, Conn., February 9, 1953; B.A., Yale University, New Haven, Conn., 1975; member of the Waterbury County, Conn., board of aldermen, 1986-1990; unsuccessful candidate for comptroller of Connecticut in 1986; elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Second and to the two succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1991-January 3, 1997); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Fifth Congress in 1996; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1998.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

In 1991, Gary A. Franks became the first ever Black Representative from Connecticut and the first Black Republican Representative since 1935. On Capitol Hill, Franks championed Republican issues, including welfare reform, opposition to affirmative action, and support for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. “The whole Republican philosophy is self-help,” Franks avowed. “I believe in less government. I believe that we don’t have to tax and spend constantly to maintain our society.” Franks’s party identification and political beliefs put him at odds with most of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), of which he was an active member. But Franks argued he was representing a vein of Black political thought rarely represented at the national level. “I see being a black Republican as unique,” Franks explained, “I don’t see being a black conservative as unique. I have a lot of views that many in the black community would agree with.”¹

Gary Alvin Franks was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on February 9, 1953. He was the youngest of six children of Jenary Petteway Franks, a dietary aide at a hospital, and Richard Franks, a mill worker who left school in the sixth grade. Education was valued in the Franks home; all the children attended college, and three earned doctoral degrees. Gary Franks was an all-state basketball player at Sacred Heart High School in Waterbury. In 1975, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University. After working as an industrial relations agent for three companies in Connecticut, Franks started his own real estate firm in Waterbury. Inspired by his friend, Representative John Rowland of Connecticut, Franks entered politics to bring what he called “new blood” to the Waterbury Republican Party. In 1985, he was elected to the Waterbury board of aldermen, where he served three terms until 1990. Franks ran unsuccessfully for state comptroller in 1986. Franks married Donna Williams in 1990. The couple raised three children: Azia, who was Donna Williams’s child from a previous relationship, Jessica, and Gary Jr.²

In 1990, Rowland, whose district encompassed a mix of working-class and wealthy towns in western and central Connecticut, including Gary Franks’s hometown of Waterbury, resigned his House seat to run for governor of Connecticut. Franks sought the Republican nomination and won the GOP endorsement by beating out five candidates at the district’s Republican convention in July 1990. In the general election, Franks faced former Democratic Representative and television anchor Anthony John “Toby” Moffett Jr.; Moffett had been elected to Congress in 1974 to represent a neighboring Connecticut district and served four terms before losing bids for the U.S. Senate in 1982 and as Connecticut governor in 1986. Franks’s campaign drew national attention. Though a Republican had held the district since Rowland upset the Democratic incumbent in 1984, the seat was considered vulnerable. Waterbury’s blue collar southern suburbs had tilted Republican in recent elections. The district contained a small Black population (under five percent). Franks ran on a conservative platform, promising no new taxes, supporting a cut in the capital gains tax, and advocating a constitutional amendment outlawing the desecration of the American flag. He also attacked welfare and other aid programs for creating what he called a “spiral of government dependency.” Franks won the election with 52 percent of the vote. As the first Black Republican Representative in five decades, Franks attracted a barrage of media attention, making him one of the most recognizable first-term Members.³

When Franks took his seat in January 1991, he received assignments on the Armed Services and Small Business Committees, as well as on the Select Committee on Aging. He also joined the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), which traditionally supported an active federal government and strong social safety net. Franks spoke regularly at CBC meetings during his first term, and he often disagreed with the caucus’s other members, all of whom were Democrats. For example, during his campaign, Franks opposed the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1990, which the CBC almost universally supported. When Democrats revived the legislation as the first bill of the 102nd Congress, Franks opposed it as well. Franks claimed he disagreed with the language but not the spirit of the bill, saying, “I question whether some Democrats truly want a civil rights bill or if they want a political issue.” Franks argued the 1991 bill would compel employers to introduce quotas in their hiring process, a common argument from the bill’s opponents. Although Franks voted against the initial House bill in June 1991, he ultimately voted for a compromise version of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 sponsored by Republican Senator John Claggett Danforth of Missouri. The law strengthened prohibitions against employment discrimination that had been weakened by a series of Supreme Court decisions and provided monetary rewards for victims of sexual discrimination. The bill passed by large margins and President George H.W. Bush signed it into law in November 1991.⁴

Franks also attracted national attention as the only member of the CBC to support the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas—an African-American judge who was named to replace Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice, when he retired. The CBC rejected Thomas’s conservative record, particularly his opposition to affirmative action. By contrast, Franks defended him, calling the CBC’s refusal to endorse Thomas “politics at its worst.” Franks noted that Thomas’s “approach to issues may be different from liberals, but his determination and concern for fairness and justice would be the same.” The Senate confirmed him on October 15, 1991, by a nearly party-line vote of 52 to 48.⁵

In 1992, Franks faced a difficult re-election against Democratic probate judge James Lawlor and Independent Lynn Taborsak, a former Democratic state representative. Both opponents criticized Franks for what they called a weak stance on federal plans to cancel the construction of Seawolf submarines in Groton, Connecticut. The project was important to the state’s economy and, as Connecticut’s sole member on the Armed Services Committee, Franks received mail from constituents about the rumored closing of the military base in Groton. Concerned voters claimed he was often unavailable for comment on the subject. Franks dismissed the attacks as a liberal smear campaign spawned by fear that he would lure African-American voters to the Republican Party. On Election Day, Franks won with a 44 percent plurality after Lawlor and Taborsak split the remaining votes. Two years later, in 1994, Connecticut state senator James H. Maloney ran a similar race against Franks, accusing him of being out of touch with his constituents. Franks remained focused on his support of businesses and welfare reform and pulled out another narrow victory, with 52 percent of the vote. In 1995, Franks served in the first Republican House majority in 40 years after the GOP routed Democrats in campaigns across the country.⁶

In his second term, Franks relinquished his seat on the Armed Services Committee for an assignment to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, a highly desirable panel that usually requires Members to give up all other committee assignments. He also returned as a member of the CBC, which added 14 Representatives after the 1992 elections, bringing the organization’s membership to 40 and establishing it as a significant voting bloc. Franks had previously been linked to Republican President Bush. But when Democrat William J. Clinton defeated Bush in the 1992 presidential election, Franks lost influence within the caucus. Several members of the CBC objected to Franks’s attendance at the caucus’s Democratic policy strategy sessions, insisting that he was a mole for the Republicans.⁷

In 1993, an exasperated Franks publicly announced his intention to resign from the CBC, but he soon recanted, citing an influx of phone calls and mail from constituents imploring him not to resign. Although he continued to criticize some of the caucus’s policies, Franks declared, “As long as I am a Member of Congress and black, I will continue to belong to the CBC.” As tensions continued to rise, the CBC voted to exclude Franks from all but the first half-hour of CBC meetings—traditionally reserved for lunch—essentially preventing Franks from participating in any formal caucus debate. Faced with growing negative publicity, CBC chair Kweisi Mfume of Maryland eventually smoothed over the rift, announcing in August 1993 that Franks would be allowed full participation in all caucus activities and promised that, during his tenure as chair, the caucus would embrace “diversity and plurality.” Franks nevertheless remained at odds with the majority of the caucus and eventually stopped attending meetings.⁸

Franks played a significant role in crafting the GOP’s welfare reform package, which was launched in the fall of 1995. The plan set strict penalties for aid recipients who refused to look for work after having collected benefits for two years and made welfare difficult for immigrants to access. The plan also made it more burdensome for mothers who could not determine their children’s paternity to receive benefits. Franks spoke candidly about his own relatives’ experience accessing federal aid, and he praised the Republican plan because he said it would encourage economic independence. “Our welfare system continues to play the role of fish-delivery man for able-bodied people. Instead, we should help—and insist—that able-bodied people catch their own fish,” Franks said. In 1995, Franks was appointed to the conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions of the welfare reform bill. Franks successfully fought to retain his proposal to encourage providing a debit card for food stamps and other benefits. He also supported the House bill’s version of the “family cap,” which limited the amount of money per child families could receive and was included in the final conference report. President Clinton vetoed the bill on January 9, 1996, forcing Congress to start again with new legislation that dropped both provisions.⁹

Franks opposed affirmative action more zealously than many of his GOP colleagues, who had championed the issue in their campaign to recapture the congressional majority. At the time, federal policy provided special set-asides and preferences for women and people of color, which Franks argued were forms of discrimination. “I do not want my children to feel that they are inferior to white children,” he declared. “I do not want someone to put their thumb on the scale in order for them to succeed.” In 1995, Franks announced he was going to propose an amendment to an appropriations bill that would, in his words, “eliminate race- and gender-based set-aside programs for the awarding of Federal contracts.” Although congressional Republicans supported Franks’s opposition to set-asides many GOP House Members objected to the abrupt nature of the proposed change, preferring to first authorize an executive review of affirmative action policies. Franks’s efforts ended when the Republican-controlled Rules Committee refused to allow his amendment to come to the floor for debate on an appropriations bill. “I question the sincerity of a number of Republicans on the issue,” Franks said to reporters. “They love to get the political mileage out of it, but when it comes time to vote, they don’t want to do it.” Franks even questioned the sincerity of Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, claiming Gingrich had promised his support for the amendment. Franks apologized to Gingrich, noting that he would follow the Speaker’s lead on the issue.¹⁰

Although Franks supported much of Gingrich’s extensive “Contract with America” reform package during both the 1994 campaign and the early stages of the 105th Congress (1997–1999), he criticized proposed budget cuts he claimed disproportionately affected women, people of color, children, and urban centers. “Mr. Speaker,” Franks said on the House Floor, “I am for dismantling the Great Society programs and the Roosevelt New Deal, but I do not believe that the solution is merely to cut, cap, or pass the buck to the States.” Franks later voted against the cuts, alongside only five other Republicans. Facing a tough re-election in 1996, however, Franks eagerly invited Gingrich to campaign with him in Connecticut and touted the Contract with America to voters.¹¹

In the 1996 election, Democrat James H. Maloney returned for a rematch against Franks in a campaign that was largely a referendum on the implementation of the GOP’s legislative agenda. On Election Day, Maloney defeated Franks 52 percent to 46 percent. Though the long coattails from President Clinton’s decisive re-election victory factored into Franks’s defeat, he also attributed his loss to a lack of support from the Republican Party—noting that the GOP estimated he was well ahead in the polls just months before the election and had refused to raise funds for what seemed like a safe Republican seat.¹²

In 1998, Franks challenged incumbent Democratic Senator Christopher John Dodd, an 18-year veteran of the Senate whose father, Thomas, had preceded him in the chamber. Franks pulled in support from Republicans, including former Vice President J. Danforth Quayle, who stumped for him. Franks described himself as a “real conservative and a real Republican,” and campaigned on the national issues he had championed in Congress. He supported the creation of a modified flat income tax and the elimination of capital gains and inheritance taxes. Franks also endorsed a strong national defense, the preservation of Medicare and Social Security, and the death penalty. Ultimately, Dodd defeated Franks with 65 percent of the vote.¹³

Following his congressional career, Franks returned to his real estate business in Waterbury. He eventually moved to Florida where he ran a scrap metal recycling company in Fort Lauderdale. Franks also lectured at several universities—including Georgetown University in Washington, DC; Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia; and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia—and wrote several books on the intersection of politics, faith, and the Black experience. He continues to speak on the issues of racial injustice and faith in politics.¹⁴

University of Oklahoma
The Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive, Department of Communication