113th Congress: Lois Frankel, D-Fla. (22nd District)

By Robert Tomkin, CQ Staff

The brash Lois Frankel is a good fit for a district teeming with thousands of her fellow New York transplants.

She wants to provide incentives to small business, which she describes as “the real engine of our economy,” and spend more on infrastructure and renewable-energy technology.

The founder of West Palm Beach’s first domestic assault center, she is a committed supporter of Roe v. Wade and backs subsidies for birth control and emergency contraception.

Befitting a district with many elderly Jewish voters, Frankel says she “will work in a bipartisan manner to fight any and all attempts to delegitimize Israel in the international arena and to ensure the safety and security of the Jewish state.”

Frankel originally was poised to run against Rep. Allen B. West, a tea party favorite. When Florida gained seats after the latest census, however, West decided to run in the new 18th District.

Frankel moved to the area in 1974 to practice law. After establishing herself in the state legislature, she lost a nasty Democratic primary for the U.S. House in 1992 to Alcee L. Hastings. She returned to the Florida House, where she became the first Democratic woman to be elected minority leader.

Frankel declined to state any committee preferences prior to the election. “I never pick out the curtains before I get the office,” she says.

In her spare time, Frankel is an amateur modernist painter.