Frank W. Ballance, Jr., was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2004, representing the 1st Congressional District in North Carolina. Prior to his tenure as a member of Congress, Ballance served in the North Carolina State House of Representatives as well as its State Senate.
Ballance was born in 1942 in Windsor, North Carolina. He received his bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Central University in 1963. He then earned a law degree from the same university in 1965. Ballance was a faculty member at the South Carolina State University School of Law before entering private practice in 1966.
Ballance was first elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1983 and served until 1986. He was later elected to the State Senate in 1988 and served until 2002 when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was president of the 108th Congress’s Democratic freshman class and served on the House Agriculture Committee and the House Small Business Committee. In 2004, he was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis and resigned from his seat.
Later that year, Ballance was indicted on federal charges including money laundering, mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit mail fraud with his son Garey Ballance, a state district judge in Warren County, North Carolina. The senior Ballance pleaded guilty and reached a plea agreement. In 2005, he was disbarred from the practice of law in the state of North Carolina. He then served four years in prison and two years on supervised release. He was released from prison in 2009.
