It was a little over a year ago when Joel Pollak, then a student at Harvard Law School, stood up during a question and answer session and asked Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) about his role in facilitating the housing crisis and subsequent financial collapse.

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Politely but directly, Pollak suggested that Frank, who called mortgage backers Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac fundamentally sound eight weeks before they were taken over by the government, had for years expanded government intervention and distortion of the housing market.

The congressman s blustery response enjoyed a cycle of YouTube and cable news fame, but also served as a reminder of the influence Frank and other regulators have had in real estate. Just a few years prior, Frank had confidently predicted on the floor of the House of Representatives that you re not going to see the collapse [in housing] that you see when people talk about a bubble, exactly why he planned to continue to, in his words, push for homeownership.

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Now, less than two years later, Barney Frank is still there, crafting more regulation that completely ignores Fannie and Freddie, which are on the verge of being delisted and now trade for pennies a share. The Congressional Budget Office believes the government bailout could cost taxpayers as much as $400 billion. Private estimates run as high as $1 trillion.

Meanwhile Boston s tiny, troubled OneUnited Bank, which last year received $12 million from taxpayers thanks to Frank s intervention, has missed five consecutive dividend payments to the Treasury, giving it one of the worst records among the Troubled Asset Relief Program s Deadbeat Banks.

Frank could soon be seeing a familiar face in Congress. Joel Pollak, now a 33-year-old Harvard law grad, is running a scrappy and fast-growing campaign for Congress in suburban North Chicago. Pollak is gaining an enthusiastic following of constitutionalists, libertarians and Tea Partiers, but he is also the only Republican ever endorsed by liberal legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, who called Pollak the single most promising political talent he has ever met.

What s Pollak s response to the fact that Frank s Wall Street Reform bill fails to address the potentially $1 trillion Freddie/Fannie bailout he questioned him about a year ago?

"The fact that Mr. Frank has never had to accept responsibility for his role has allowed him to make the same mistakes that got our financial system into trouble in the first place, Pollak wrote to me in an email. The new bill will create an elite circle of government-addicted winners and leave the rest of America behind. It is a recipe for future economic crisis."

Frank isn t budging. It is clear that [Pollak] isn t very knowledgeable about the roots of the financial crisis, despite the many good books on the subject as well as in-depth series in publications like the New York Times and others, a spokesman for Frank said.

Pollak seems intent on getting that response from Frank himself. And what s the first thing he plans on asking the nearly 30-year incumbent, should he join Frank in the halls of Congress?

"Now will you answer my question?"