Democratic leadership in the House is facing the ire of lawmakers upset at submitting a last-minute draft of legislation that would ban lawmakers from stock trading — an issue that matters to both sides of the aisle ahead of the midterms.
On Tuesday (September 27), days before Congress is set to leave for an extended recess, House Democratic leaders unveiled a draft bill of the trading stocks ban. The date of its unveiling meant lawmakers didn’t have enough time to review the bill or offer changes. The lack of time also means that lawmakers wouldn’t be able to close loopholes, essentially making the bill toothless.
In a scathing statement issued on Friday (September 30), Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) accused her fellow Democrats of deliberately holding up a bipartisan-backed stock trading proposal she introduced two years ago to introduce a convoluted bill bound to fail.
In her statement, Spanberger took issue with Democratic leadership pointing out that she had been calling for a change in leadership for the very reason her bill was stalled and replaced with a more complicated one.
“This moment marks a failure of House leadership — and it’s yet another example of why I believe that the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known,” she wrote.
On Friday (September 30), House Speaker addressed the lack of meaningful development regarding the bill, saying it hadn’t reached the floor because it didn’t have the votes to pass.
Pelosi has indirectly benefitted from the lack of a stock trading ban as her husband amassed a fortune in stock picks, frequently beating the market.
