2010 Hughes Politician in Residence: Former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost

March 04, 2010 |

Martin Frost, a former congressman and Sarah T. Hughes law clerk, will be visiting Goucher College’s campus on Thursday, March 4, and Friday, March 5, as the 2010 Hughes Politician in Residence. 

In addition to speaking to selected classes, Frost will present a free, public lecture at 7:30 p.m. on March 4 in Buchner Hall of the Alumnae/i House. He will discuss his work with Judge Hughes and the current climate of partisanship in the U.S. Congress.

Frost has held numerous leadership positions for the Democratic Party and is considered to be one of the party’s top strategists.

From 1979 to 2005, Frost served as a member of Congress representing the Dallas-Fort Worth area in north Texas. During his tenure in the House, he served for six years on the House Budget Committee and was chairman of the Health Task Force from 1985 to 1988.

From 1990 to 1995, Frost chaired a special House task force that was established to help eastern and central European nations transition to democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was also co-chair with former Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., of the Bipartisan Working Group on Youth Violence and a co-chair with former Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., of a bipartisan working group that examined ways to ensure the federal government's continued operation after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

During the 1996 and 1998 election cycles, he was the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, helping his party to a net gain of 14 House seats.

Frost co-authored the 1992 Industrial Base and Defense Conversion Act, which enabled communities and individuals to respond to the downsizing of the defense industry, and the privacy provisions in the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the landmark financial industry deregulation statute. He was also the author of the National Amber Alert law that helps find children victimized by predators.

He served from 1999 to 2003 as chair of the caucus, the third-highest elected leadership position for Democrats, and was the senior Democrat on the powerful Rules Committee.

When Frost departed Congress, he was the senior Southern Democrat in the House and the dean of the Texas congressional delegation.

He was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for the Fall 2005 semester and was named a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in January 2006. He served as president of America Votes, a nationwide voter turnout organization, during the 2008 general election cycle.

Frost graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor of journalism degree and worked as a reporter for the Wilmington (DE) News-Journal and Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report in Washington before going on to law school at the Georgetown Law Center, where he was a member of the law review.

Frost clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Sarah T. Hughes of the Northern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas and District of Columbia Bars and formerly practiced law in Dallas.