Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) issued a stinging critique of Speaker Nancy Pelosi for introducing legislation that she said was “designed to fail” on Friday, calling for new House leadership in response to Pelosi’s management of legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from trading stock.
After Pelosi declined to put up legislation to outlaw stock trading by members of Congress and their families, a House Democrat revolted against her, calling her “house leadership” ineffective.
TL;DR: House leadership has failed to hold a vote to ban Members of Congress from trading stocks.
— Rep. Abigail Spanberger (@RepSpanberger) September 30, 2022
For months, bipartisan momentum grew in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to finally take a step towards prohibiting Members of Congress from day trading while on the job. (1/9)
Spanberger has been critical of Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) administration of the stock-trading legislation for a long time and has not endorsed Pelosi (D-Calif.) for speaker of the House.
But in light of Spanberger’s challenging reelection campaign, where Republicans are seeking to link her to Pelosi and Vice President Biden, Friday’s remark further separates her from the speaker.
Before Pelosi and the House Administration Committee took over, Spanberger and a bipartisan group of legislators had been carrying the push for a congressional stock trading prohibition, writing their own legislation under closed doors for months.
A vote would occur before the end of the month, according to Pelosi. However, leadership revealed legislation late Tuesday that ethics experts thought was overly broad and had a significant loophole only days before the session ended.
She contested whether Pelosi, whose partner is a prolific stock trader and who originally openly expressed opposition to a congressional stock-trading ban, actually endorsed the legislation. Spanberger confronted authorities and the committee for deliberately releasing “a kitchen-sink package that they knew would immediately crash upon arrival” and engaging in delay tactics so that there would be “no time to fix it.”
In the statement, Spanberger said that the Speaker “purportedly modified her position” after first declaring her opposition to these proposals.
Spanberger’s critique was dismissed by Pelosi at a routine press conference on Friday, saying that his suggestion was part of a larger package but that “others have ideas as well.”
When questioned about running for a Democratically elected leader in the incoming Congress, Pelosi responded, “I’m strictly focused on winning the next election.”
Spanberger is now immersed in a closely fought reelection campaign against Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega. Spanberger won a victory in 2018 by flipping a district that had supported the former president, Donald Trump.
Spanberger has worked hard to project a message of bipartisanship during the campaign, using her support for stock-trading prohibition as one example. However, Vega and national Republicans have taken the risk of undermining that message by claiming in election advertisements that she votes with Pelosi “100% of the time.”