Barney Frank to retire after three decades

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts is expected to announce Monday that he is retiring from Congress, closing out a career of more than three decades capped by passage last year of legislation imposing new regulations on Wall Street.

Frank's office says he will hold a 1 p.m. news conference in Newton, Mass. to make the formal announcement that he will not run for reelection in 2012.

A lifelong liberal, Frank, 71, was first elected to the House in 1980. He was one of the first lawmakers to announce that he is a homosexual.

He is the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, a panel he chaired when Democrats held a majority for four years beginning in early 2007.

As chairman, he helped shepherd to passage legislation that provided the most extensive overhaul of the nation's financial system in decades. The measure was a response to the near collapse of the banking industry in 2008 and disclosures about Wall Street practices that stirred mass anger.