Frost ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House in 1974. He tried again successfully in 1978,becoming the first Jewish U.S. congressman from Texas. Frost was reelected 12 times without serious opposition. In 1980,he defeated an African American Republican opponent,Clay Smothers.[3]
On October 10,2002,Martin Frost was among the 81 House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the invasion of Iraq.[4]
He served two terms as the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus from 1999 to 2003,the number three post in the Democrats' House leadership after the minority leader and minority whip. As Democratic Caucus Chair,Frost was often at odds with another prominent Dallas-area Congressman,Dick Armey,who was the Republican House Majority Leader.[5]
Due to term limits as Democratic Caucus Chair,Frost made a bid for Minority Leader after Dick Gephardt resigned in the wake of losing four seats in the 2002 Congressional midterm elections,but Frost dropped out of the race and supported eventual winner Nancy Pelosi.
Due to his strong fundraising ability for fellow Democrats,[8] and the fact that he led the 1991 redistricting in Texas,he was one of the targets of a controversial mid-decade redistricting engineered by then-House Majority LeaderTom DeLay.[9] His district,which included portions of Dallas,Fort Worth and Arlington,was redrawn to be much more Republican. Its portions of Fort Worth and Arlington were replaced with wealthier and more Republican territory around Dallas. While Al Gore won the old 24th fairly handily in 2000,the new 24th would have given George W. Bush a staggering 68 percent of the vote in that election. Moreover,Frost's home in Arlington was shifted into the heavily Republican 6th District,represented by 10-term incumbent Joe Barton. Frost decided to seek re-election in the newly redrawn 32nd District,which included a considerable amount of territory that he had represented from 1979 until 1993. He lost by 10 points to Republican Pete Sessions. Since Ralph Hall's party switch earlier in 2004,Frost had been the only white Democrat to represent a significant portion of the Metroplex.
Frost is now[when?] an attorney at the Polsinelli law firm[11] and president of America Votes.[12] He is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.[13]
In a July 2011 op-ed regarding the debt ceiling crisis,Frost wrote,"We now have a group of U.S. politicians seeking political purity,who seem to have much in common with the Taliban. They are tea party members."[14]
Frost co-authored with Tom Davis,Richard E. Cohen,and David Eisenhower the 2014 book The Partisan Divide in which they attempt to explain the reasons behind an increasingly polarized U.S. Congress and offer possible solutions.
After leaving office,he became involved in political reform efforts,including joining nine other former members of Congress to co-author a 2021 opinion editorial advocating reforms of Congress.[15]
Personal
Frost in 2020 with his wife Jo Ellen Frost
In 1976,Frost married Valerie H. Hall in Dallas. They divorced in 1998. Later that year he married Kathryn Frost,a major general in the United States Army. She died in 2006,and in 2008,Frost married Jo Ellen Ronson.
↑ The Savitar, University of Missouri Yearbook (1964), p. 387, caption to image of Martin Frost. Retrieved from University of Missouri Digital Library 8 December 2011.
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