Democrats' Cause Is Tempered by Political Realities

Frank is best known nationally not for his gruff demeanor or his imposing intelligence, but for his homosexuality; Republicans often raised the specter of "Chairman Barney Frank" with conservative voters. Although Frank is a liberal, he is also a capitalist. One of his top goals on Financial Services is to prove those are not contradictory labels. "We've been on the defensive," he told the coalition. "We're going to get off the defensive, but a little slower than I'd like."

Frank's staff has asked housing advocates for lists of policies they would like changed, with an emphasis on changes that will not cost money. He told the coalition's members that if they want federal dollars for low-income renters, "the single most important thing you can tell Congress is: End the war in Iraq."

That is why the Katrina bill focused primarily on giving local agencies more flexibility to use money that had already been allocated and on increasing oversight, rather than on expanding the federal role or creating new programs. Frank believed most of the Republicans on his committee would support a modest bill but nothing grandiose.

Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) had more ambitious goals. Green took Katrina personally -- as a native of New Orleans who watched his home town drown, as a Houstonian who represents thousands of evacuees, and as an African American. So he sent Frank three amendments, one for nearly $1 billion in housing for Texas and Alabama, one to create 25,000 new subsidized apartments along the Gulf, and one to approve long-term rent-subsidy vouchers for all evacuees who had temporary FEMA vouchers or who lived in FEMA trailers.

But the night before his committee debated the bill, Frank removed two of Green's amendments and whittled the 25,000 apartments to 4,500. After listening to the objections of his committee's top Republican, Spencer Bachus (Ala.), Frank had concluded that Green's proposals were too expensive and controversial to become law; the 4,500 apartments stayed because a similar amendment proposed by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) had slipped through the Senate last year before getting deleted by House Republicans.

Green said he trusted Frank's political judgment, even though he was disappointed by the decision, but some affordable-housing advocates were deeply disappointed.

Sheila Crowley, the head of the low-income-housing coalition, had introduced Frank at her conference as one of the affordable-housing community's best friends. But sources said that when she called to push for Green's amendments, Frank read her the riot act. In an interview, Frank pointed out that even the 4,500 units would represent the first major federal investment in new affordable housing since Republicans seized Congress in 1994.

"I was shocked when people complained," he said. "We haven't done any of this in 12 years. . . . All the reasonable people in the Gulf were very happy with this bill."

Quite a few Republicans were happy with it, too. There were some party-line votes on amendments, but a proposal by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) to deny aid to Katrina victims who do not have jobs or perform significant community service -- Frank called it "the mean amendment" -- had little support.

And when Republicans accused the Democrats of using Katrina to create new rent-subsidy programs, Frank said that although he believes America needs more rent subsidies, he would reshape the bill to make sure most of its subsidies would disappear when Katrina victims no longer needed them. "We'll split the difference," he said.

In the end, the committee approved the bill 50 to 16.

"From a legislative standpoint, it was a model of how the parties ought to come together," Bachus said. "Each side gave a bit, and it was a better bill in the end result."

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But that was not quite the end result. After the committee vote, Crowley and other advocates met with Pelosi, Hoyer and Frank. Frank ultimately agreed to allow a floor vote on Green's most ambitious amendment, a proposal to offer long-term rent-subsidy vouchers to as many as 120,000 low-income families with temporary vouchers or FEMA trailers who could lose their assistance by September.

On March 20, the House passed Green's amendment on a largely party-line vote. Contrary to Frank's fears, the amendment did not drain Republican support for the bill, which passed 302 to 125. "We've done more in two months than they did in two years," Frank crowed. "And there's more to come."

That is what Hensarling is afraid of. At the start of an hour-long interview, he warned that Democrats were returning to their liberal roots, shaking down taxpayers to throw money at the poor. He said they would be unable to resist the "12 years of pent-up demand" for big-government responses to housing issues. But he later acknowledged that Pelosi and Frank were not going nearly as far as he had expected.

"I think there's a concerted effort on the speaker's part not to let Democrats act like Democrats," he said, with a hint of admiration.

It is true that housing advocates are not getting everything they want. Joseph Rich, director of housing programs for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, says that has caused a fair amount of grumbling. But he said that after years of waiting, most advocates understand that they cannot expect instant entree to the promised land.

"We've turned a corner," Rich said. "We've been losing ground for years, and we finally have hope."