William Harrison "Bill" Frist, Sr. (born February 22, 1952) is an American physician, businessman, and politician. Frist served two terms as a United States Senator representing Tennessee where he became the Republican Majority Leader from 2003 until his retirement in 2007. During the 1994 election, he promised not to serve for more than two terms.
Childhood and medical career
Frist was born in Nashville, Tennessee to Dorothy Cate Frist and Thomas Fearn Frist Sr. He is a fourth-generation Tennessean. His great-great grandfather was one of the founders of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and his father was a doctor.
Frist graduated from Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee and then from Princeton University in 1974, where he specialized in health care policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 1972 he held a summer internship with Tennessee Congressman Joe Evins, who advised Frist that if he wanted to pursue a political career, he should first have a career outside of politics. Frist proceeded to Harvard Medical School, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine with honors in 1978.
Frist joined the lab of W. John Powell Jr., M.D. at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1977, where he continued his training in cardiovascular physiology. He left the lab in 1978 to become a resident in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1983, he spent time at Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, England as senior registrar in cardiothoracic surgery. He returned to Massachusetts General in 1984 as chief resident and fellow in cardiothoracic surgery. From 1985 until 1986, Frist was senior fellow and chief resident in cardiac transplant service and cardiothoracic surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After completing his fellowship, he became a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he began a heart and lung transplantation program. He also became staff surgeon at the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital. In 1989, he founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. In 1991, Dr. Frist operated on then-Lieutenant Colonel David Petraeus after he'd been shot in a training accident at Fort Campbell.
He is currently licensed as a physician, and is board certified in both general surgery and thoracic surgery. He has performed over 150 heart transplants and lung transplants, including pediatric heart transplants and combined heart and lung transplants.
Frist avoided answering a question in a December 2004 television interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos as to whether or not HIV could be transmitted through tears or sweat. Frist has no training in epidemiology, the medical specialization of communicable disease and infection. At the time, a federal sex education program suggested that it was, in fact, possible to transmit HIV this way. After being repeatedly questioned by Stephanopoulos about it, Frist eventually stated that "it would be very hard" for HIV to be transmitted this way.
Entering politics
In 1990, Frist met with former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker about the possibilities of public office. Baker advised him to pursue the Senate, and in 1992 suggested that Frist begin preparations to run in 1994. Frist began to build support. He served on Tennessee's Governor's Medicaid Task Force from 1992 to 1993, joined the National Steering Committee of the Republican National Committee's Health Care Coalition, and was deputy director of the Tennessee Bush-Quayle '92 campaign. As part of Frist's preparations for political office, in December 1993 he ended his membership in Nashville, Tennessee's racially segregated Belle Meade Country Club, which he had joined in the 1980s, (following a family tradition).
During his first campaign, Frist repeatedly accused his opponent, incumbent Senator Jim Sasser, of "sending Tennessee money to Washington, DC, to Marion Barry ... While I've been transplanting lungs and hearts to heal Tennesseans, Jim Sasser has been transplanting Tennesseans' wallets to Washington, home of Marion Barry." During that campaign, he also attacked Sasser for his attempt to become Senate Majority Leader, claiming that his opponent would be spending more time taking care of Senate business than Tennessee business. Frist won the election, defeating Sasser by 13 points in the 1994 Republican sweep of both Houses of Congress, thus becoming the first physician in the Senate since June 17, 1938, when Royal S. Copeland died.
In his 2000 reelection campaign, Frist easily won with 66 percent of the vote. He received the largest vote total ever by a statewide candidate in the history of Tennessee, although Al Gore won a higher percentage of the vote (70%) in his 1990 Senate re-election. Frist's 2000 campaign organization was later fined by the Federal Election Commission for failing to disclose a $1.44 million loan taken out jointly with the 1994 campaign organization.
National attention
Frist first entered the national spotlight when two Capitol police officers were shot inside the United States Capitol by Russell Eugene Weston Jr. in 1998. Frist, the closest doctor, provided immediate medical attention (he was unable to save the two officers, but was able to save Weston). He also was the Congressional spokesman during the 2001 anthrax attacks.
As the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he helped Republicans win back the Senate in the 2002 midterm election. His committee collected $66.4 million for 2001–2002, 50% more than the previous year. Shortly afterwards, Sen. Trent Lott made comments at a Strom Thurmond birthday celebration in which he said that if Thurmond's presidential bid of 1948 had succeeded, "we wouldn't have all these problems today". In the aftermath, Lott resigned his position as Senate Majority Leader and Frist was chosen unanimously by Senate Republicans as his replacement. He became the second youngest Senate Majority Leader in US history. In his 2005 book, "Herding Cats, A Lifetime in Politics", Lott accuses William Frist of being "one of the main manipulators" in the debate that ended Senator Lott's leadership in the Republican Senate. Lott wrote that Senator Frist's actions amounted to a "personal betrayal." Frist "... didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell me personally that he was going to run ... If Frist had not announced exactly when he did, as the fire was about to burn out, I would still be majority leader of the Senate today," Lott wrote.
In the 2003 legislative session, Frist enjoyed many successes. He was able to push many initiatives through to fruition, including the Bush administration's third major tax cut and legislation that was against partial-birth abortion. However, the tactics that he used to achieve those victories alienated many Democrats. In 2004, by comparison, he saw no major legislative successes, with the explanations ranging from delay tactics by Democrats to lack of unity within the Republican Party.
In a prominent and nationally broadcast speech to the Republican National Convention in August 2004, Frist highlighted his background as a doctor and focused on several issues related to health care. He spoke in favor of the recently passed Medicare prescription drug benefit and the passage of legislation providing for Health Savings Accounts. He described President Bush's policy regarding stem cell research, limiting embryonic stems cells to certain existing lines, as "ethical." In an impassioned argument for medical malpractice tort reform, Frist called personal injury trial lawyers "predators": "We must stop them from twisting American medicine into a litigation lottery where they hit the jackpot and every patient ends up paying." Frist has been an advocate for imposing caps on the amount of money courts can award plaintiffs for noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.
During the 2004 election season, Frist employed the unprecedented political tactic of going to the home state (South Dakota) of the opposition party (Democrat)'s minority leader, Democrat Tom Daschle, and actively campaigned against him. Daschle's Republican opponent, John Thune, defeated Daschle. In Daschle's farewell address, Frist arrived late. After the 2004 elections, Frist played a role in the controversy over Arlen Specter's post-election remarks. Frist demanded a public statement from Specter in which Specter would repudiate his earlier remarks and pledge support for Bush's judiciary nominees. Frist rejected an early version of the statement as too weak, and gave his approval to the statement that Specter eventually delivered.
Frist received some criticism within the Republican caucus in the Senate over his handling of the Majority Leader position, and his near invisibility as a spokesman for the Republican caucus, which has damaged his reputation. His supporters within the caucus pointed to his success in moving tax legislation important to the executive branch as a sign that he was simply filling his place on the team, namely to bring important bills to a vote, and then ensure that gains made on the floor were preserved in the conference committee process.
Many of Frist's opponents have attacked him for what they see as pandering to future Republican primary voters. They claim that he has taken extreme positions on social issues such as the Terri Schiavo case in order to please them. On the othe
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Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to retire when his term ends next year. Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
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