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November 19 at 6:41 PM

Bill Frenzel, a Minnesota Republican who became a prominent congressional authority on federal budget and international trade issues during 20 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, died Nov. 17 at his home in McLean, Va. He was 86.

The cause was cancer, said a daughter, Pam Lindon.

Mr. Frenzel was an executive at his familys warehousing operation and served in the Minnesota House of Representatives before winning an open congressional seat in 1970. He represented his district in the Twin Cities suburbs until 1990, when he declined to seek reelection.

By then he had become dean of the Minnesota delegation, ranking Republican on the House Budget committee and an influential member of the tax-writing Ways and Means committee. On both sides of the aisle, he was admired for his deeply researched positions on complicated fiscal matters.

Loud and brainy, partisan and thoughtful, he puts his stamp on every debate in which he participates, read his profile in the Almanac of American Politics.

Among Mr. Frenzels principal legislative interests were promoting free trade and balanced budgets. He helped negotiate the major 1990 deficit-reduction deal, a significant achievement at a time when Mr. Frenzel had become increasingly frustrated by what he described as the Republican Partys seemingly permanent minority.

Democrats think they were born to be kings, Congressional Quarterly quoted him as saying, and that theres a servant class, and thats the Republicans.

In an effort to invigorate his party, Mr. Frenzel nominated Newt Gingrich for party whip, a position that the Georgia Republican won in 1989. Gingrichs fiery style contrasted with Mr. Frenzels more moderate one, but Mr. Frenzel said he had concluded that the party needed to take some risks.

In 1994 four years after Mr. Frenzels retirement Gingrich led the GOP to recapturing control of the House.

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Bill Frenzel, Minnesota Republican and fiscal authority in the U.S. House, dies at 86