I think it's because the populace has entered into a new, unspoken, social contract with our representatives:
You keep bringing home the bacon and we'll keep re-electing you.In short, we the people have become unfit for liberty, just as the Founding Fathers feared we would.
"A people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it." J.S. Mill
Barney Frank is an elitist, a member of Congress and the laws don’t apply to him!