Barney Frank wants to be in the Senate for all the right reasons

There are basically two reasons to want to be an interim senator for six months only: to have your obituary say you were a senator once, or to fight for good legislation without fear of pissing off your donors. It should surprise no one that Barney Frank falls into the latter category. In fact, Frank says the reason he wants to be appointed to replace John Kerry once the Massachusetts senator is confirmed as secretary of state is that there's so much important legislation coming up:

"We've put off the sequester for a couple of months, and we will decide in a couple of months what to do about spending cuts," Frank said. "And the debt limit will come up. And there will be efforts to reduce Medicare and Social Security. ... So it was when I sat there and learned what important decisions were going to be have to be made in February, March and April, I decided that I wanted the job." [...]

"I do think, immodestly, that given the important decision that will be made about these complicated questions, in February, March and April, I'm very well-qualified because I don't know of anybody else who's been doing these things so continuously who's ready to jump in," he said.

Seriously. Here's an opportunity for Massachusetts to have a former House Financial Services Committee chair as its interim senator, one who has only recently left office and remains totally up to speed on the legislation and the legislators. Why would you miss out on that? And Frank would take the role without future Senate ambition, saying he's "very happy with Ed Markey" and that he has plans to "mak[e] a lot of money" (giving speeches and writing books, not lobbying) that he'd just be delaying to be in the Senate protecting Medicare and Social Security.

Sign our petition asking Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint Barney Frank interim U.S. senator from Massachusetts.