Frank Forrest Buck was a Tennessee politician and a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for the 40th district, which is composed of DeKalb, Smith, and Macon counties.
Background
He was the son of John and Georgia Baird Buck. His father, John, started out as a sharecropper and eventually owned over 100 acres (040 km2) of land in Wilson, Smith and Trousdale counties. His father was stricken with polio while Buck was at Lebanon High School.
His father spent many months at Vanderbilt Medical Center recovering, but never walked again.
Education
Neither of his parents completed the eighth grade, as they dropped out of school to work in the Great Depression.
Career
He has one brother, John William Buck. Buck was Vice-Chair of the House Transportation Committee and the Chair of the House Public Transportation and Highways Subcommittee. Buck graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Tennessee Technological University and graduated with a Juris Doctor from University of Tennessee Law School.
He and Lena have 4 daughters, Kathy, Melinda, Sara and Jennifer.
In 1990, Frank Buck narrowly lost to Bill Purcell in a bid for the position of House majority leader. Buck is known for efforts on ethics reform, though critics accuse him of showboating while other legislators seek reform more quietly, and of only recently finding ethics in order to use the issue against political enemies.
However, his supporters cite his long and lengthy record of supporting and passing ethics reform throughout his thirty-six-year-long legislative career. In 1994, he took issue with the expense of different execution methods reported by Department of Correction officials that placed a firing-squad execution at $7,000.
In 1994, he sponsored a bill introduced by former Senator.
Carol Rice that became known as the "cup-of-coffee" bill, which would have prevented legislators from taking so much as a cup of coffee from lobbyists. A version of it was passed in 1995—without Buck as a sponsor—with a loophole that allowed legislators to receive free meals and drinks if another legislator is invited. In February 2008, Buck announced he would not run for re-election and would retire when his current term expired.
Membership
He served as a member of the House for thirty-six years. He was re-elected as a member of the Democratic Party. He served as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a member of the House Judicial Administration Subcommittee, and the House Criminal Practice and Procedure Subcommittee.
He exposed a whiskey-for-votes racket operating in DeKalb County and helped to bring reform as a member of the DeKalb County Ethics Commission.
In 1993 and 1994, Buck introduced legislation that would have restrained lobbyists from giving gifts and paying travel expenses of members of the General Assembly, and forced more disclosure of such acts.