One of the first openly gay US congressmen Barney Frank dies aged 86

Barney Frank, the long-time US Democratic congressman and leading liberal who brought new visibility to gay rights, has died.

The 86-year-old died late on Tuesday, according to Jim Segel, Mr Frank’s former campaign manager and close friend.

After representing broad swathes of Boston’s suburbs in the US congress for 32 years, Mr Frank and his husband moved to Ogunquit, Maine.

He entered hospice there in April with congestive heart failure and is survived by his husband, Jim Ready, and sisters, the Democratic strategist Ann Lewis and Doris Breay, along with brother David Frank.

A self-described “left-handed gay Jew”, Mr Frank was known for his acerbic wit, combative style and focus on marginalised communities.

He represented the party’s left wing while keeping close with Democratic leaders who sometimes frustrated progressives.

He is best known as a pioneer for LGBT rights.

After decades of grappling with his sexuality, he publicly came out as gay in 1987, the first member of the US congress to do so voluntarily.

With his 2012 marriage to Mr Ready, he became the first incumbent US legislator on Capitol Hill to marry someone of the same sex.

But in an April interview as he entered hospice, Frank said he hoped he would be remembered for advocating a brand of politics that embraced progressive ideals without forcing them on voters prematurely.

It is an approach he feared was being rejected as Democrats prepare for what could be a rollicking primary as they hope to retake the White House in 2028 and move past the Trump era.

“I hope I made the point that the best way to accomplish the improvements in our society that we need, particularly in making it less unfair economically and socially, is by conventional political methods,” Mr Frank said.

“The main obstacle to our defeating populism and going further in the right direction is that mainstream Democrats have to make it clear that we oppose that part of the agenda of our friends on the left that is politically unacceptable.

“They’re right about a lot of things but you have to have some discretion.”

“You should not take the most unpopular parts of your agenda and make them litmus tests,” he added.

“And that’s what my friends on the left have been doing.”

Through his early years in Washington, Mr Frank led something of a double life.

Privately, he socialised in the city’s gay circles and had relationships but did not publicly acknowledge his sexuality.

The media at the time rarely reported that someone was gay unless that person was involved in a scandal.

When Mr Frank in 1987 invited a reporter to his office to formally ask whether the congressman was gay, Mr Frank responded: “Yeah, so what?”

Other elected leaders, perhaps most notably San Francisco’s Harvey Milk, had come out years before.

Members of the US congress, including Gerry Studds, were previously outed through scandal.

Mr Frank’s approach made him the most prominent gay leader in national politics for much of the 1980s and 1990s.

He helped secure Aids funding and pressed the Democratic Clinton administration, unsuccessfully, to lift a ban on gay people serving in the military.

Mr Frank was also the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in 2007, when he would leave his lasting policy mark as the US economy careened toward collapse.

He worked with the Republican Bush administration to pass a rescue package, providing vital support to financial institutions but spurring a populist revolt that still courses through American politics.

Once the initial crisis eased, Mr Frank helped develop the most significant reform legislation since the New Deal.

Working with then-Senate banking committee chairman Chris Dodd, the Dodd-Frank Act would enhance consumer protections, impose new capital requirements for banks and boost the ability of regulators to monitor risk.

“Barney and I shared a fantastic relationship,” Mr Dodd said.

“I had many good moments in those 36 years in Congress, but none more significant, joyful, or productive than those almost two years working with Barney on our banking bill.”

During US President Donald Trump’s second term, his Republican administration has worked to roll back many of the legislation’s provisions, arguing they were too onerous.

Mr Frank faced his toughest re-election campaign in years in 2010 as the tea party wave swept over American politics.

He opted against running again in 2012, though he remained engaged in politics long after leaving the US congress and was a fierce critic of Mr Trump.

Asked for his prediction on who might succeed Mr Trump, Mr Frank said “unfortunately I won’t get to vote for it.”