A member of the Republican Party, Frenzel previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1963 to 1971.

During the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, Frenzel was a proponent of economic ties to the regime of Saddam Hussein, and opposed congressional efforts to condemn Iraqi war crimes such as the infamous Halabja chemical attack, the deadliest chemical-weapons attack in history, on the grounds that they would disrupt future trade with Iraq.

President Bill Clinton appointed Frenzel (1993) to help sell the North American Free Trade Agreement.

[6][7] In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him to a commission to study the Social Security system, and, in 2002, to the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN), which he chairs.

He was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered, on December 20, 2004, as an advocate of President Bush's plan for Social Security privatization.

Gridlock is the natural gift the Framers of the Constitution gave us so that the country would not be subjected to policy swings resulting from the whimsy of the public.

And the competition – whether multi-branch, multi-level, or multi-house – is important to those checks and balances and to our ongoing kind of centrist government.