By Lauren Victoria Burke and Bob Cusack

Senate Finance Committee leaders Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are the hardest working members of Congress, according to the people who work with them on Capitol Hill — their fellow lawmakers, aides and other officials.

Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) came in third.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said, “He’s a guy you can sit down and deal with.”

Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Mike Castle (R-Del.) mentioned Frank as one of their favorite members to work with, adding that he always keeps his word.

Frank is the only House lawmaker who made both the bipartisan and partisan lists.

Read more in The Hill

Of the four hundred and thirty-five members of the House of Representatives, Barney Frank is the only one whose public remarks have been collected in a book of quotations (“Frank Talk: The Wit and Wisdom of Barney Frank,” published in 2006). He is also the only congressman whose fight against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton has been the subject of a documentary, which was shown to acclaim at film festivals around the country (“Let’s Get Frank,” directed by Bart Everly).

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — Representative Barney Frank, the rumpled, cantankerous chairman of the Financial Services Committee, plopped down on a leather bench off the House floor last week. After two months of trying to win Republican support for his bill to help homeowners at risk of foreclosure, he had come up short.

The White House had just threatened a veto.