Gary Franks

Infobox_Congressman
name = Gary A. Franks


date of birth = birth date and age|1953|2|9
place of birth = Waterbury, Connecticut
death_date =
death_place =
state = Connecticut
district = 5th
term_start = January 7, 1991
term_end = January 7, 1997
preceded = John G. Rowland
succeeded = James H. Maloney
party = Republican
spouse =
religion =

Gary A. Franks (born February 9, 1953) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut for six years, from 1991 until 1997. He was the first and to date only African-American elected to Congress from Connecticut.

Franks was born in Waterbury, New Haven County, Connecticut. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1975. He served as a member of the Waterbury, Connecticut board of aldermen from 1986 to 1990. Franks was an unsuccessful candidate for comptroller of Connecticut in 1986. He was elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Second and to the two succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1991 – January 3, 1997). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Fifth Congress in 1996 and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1998.

Franks was the first black Republican to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives since Oscar Stanton De Priest won his last term on the South Side of Chicago in 1932. The other African-American Republican member of the U.S. House in the 1990s was J. C. Watts from Oklahoma. In his 1990 election Franks defeated former 6th District congressman Toby Moffett whom Franks portrayed as a carpetbagger too liberal to represent the conservative 5th District. Franks won in a three way election in 1992 when the Democrats split between endorsed candidate Judge James Lawlor, a moderate from Waterbury, and Connecticut Party candidate Lynn Taborsak, a labor-liberal candidate from Danbury. James H. Maloney, then the Democratic state senator from Danbury, challenged Franks in 1994 and received 46% of the vote.

Maloney ran again in 1996 and benefitted from the coattails of President Bill Clinton's strong showing in Connecticut. Franks was intending to run for the Senate in 1998 and may have assumed his incumbency was secure, as he spent much of the year on a book tour. The 1996 House race did not focus on ideology. Rather, Maloney relentlessly attacked Franks for personal business practices alleging Franks was a Waterbury slumlord, utilizing the now famous "rat ad". Maloney won the rematch in 1996.

Franks did challenge Senator Chris Dodd in 1998. Dodd was re-elected, with Franks receiving 32% of the vote.

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