Last month, I noted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s flabbergasting opposition to legislation that would restrict or ban stock trading by members of Congress. Her comments came in the wake of a startling Business Insider report documenting how 54 senators and congresspeople violated the lax existing rules, which simply require disclosure of trades by elected officials or family members within a certain window of time.
For a variety of reasons, banning or severely restricting stock trading on Capitol Hill should be a no-brainer. So color me not surprised to read last week that Republicans, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, are considering turning restrictions on congressional stock trading into a campaign issue to use for winning back the House in November. This potential GOP strategy validates criticism of Pelosi’s somewhat contemptuous dismissal of the need for better stock trading rules. After all, public opinion runs strongly against the practice, which can’t hurt the party that adopts it as a campaign issue. More than this, though, stock sale reform provides a perfect opportunity for the Republican Party to wield of fig leaf of ethical modesty in front of the vast apparatus of corruption the party embodies. Why not talk a good game about banning stocks, if it will help the party distract the public from the GOP’s far-ranging attacks on fair elections and embrace of slow-motion insurrection, not to mention its entanglement with possibly the most corrupt politician in America, Donald Trump?
It’s the vast corruption of the dearly departed Trump administration in particular that made my head reel when I first read about Pelosi’s nonchalant take on corruption, or least its appearance, among congressional representatives. To have experienced the Trump years, but then failing to conclude that ethical behavior would need to be at the center of the Democrats’ claim to be the party that could wash away the stench of Trumpism, is frankly a mind-boggling political (and moral) miscalculation. Much of the horror of the Trump administration flowed from the replacement of the public interest with Donald Trump’s personal avarice and lust for power. THIS is the true, larger context for Pelosi’s lack of enthusiasm for ethical reforms. And now we are seeing the political fallout of this miscalculation begin to threaten Democrats — in this case, failing to act decisively earlier, in the wake of the Business Insider report, has allowed the GOP not only to pretend that it's interested in cleaning up politics, but to highlight an issue that makes it seem that both sides are equally corrupt and in need of a good hose-down. Left to fester, it has now been weaponized by the GOP into a way to provide cover for the party’s broader corruption, and as a method for indicting Democrats as fellow travelers in trough-wallowing — all completely predictable, and both politically tone deaf and morally wrong.
The fact that various political odd couples and surprise embracers of ethics are joining the fight in favor of trading restrictions also highlights the bizarreness of Pelosi’s initial cold water response and the damage further foot-dragging by congressional leadership might inflict on the party. In the House, Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger has joined with Republican Chip Roy of Texas to sponsor legislation that would require lawmakers and their immediate family to put their stock holdings in a blind trust. In the Senate, not only Democrat Jon Osoff but Josh “fist bump your respect for the insurrectionists” Hawley are both pushing legislation to clean up this mess.
But now for some good news. Last week, the Speaker seemed to moderate her position, stating that she now would be open to moving stock-trading legislation forward if her caucus were to support it — though she still felt compelled to note that, “I just don't buy into it.” (Yikes.) More encouragingly, there are reports that the effort to move forward on restrictions has gained momentum in recent weeks — ironically enough, in part because of Pelosi’s initial derisive comments. According to Representative Roy, “The news of the speaker’s comments blew the lid off the issue,” while Spanberger noted that, “Even if she disagrees or thinks it’s unnecessary, I think there was a dismissiveness of the question that I think caught a lot of attention and certainly has propelled this issue a bit more.”
Getting such legislation passed before the midterms should be a high priority for Democrats. Not only do they need to do the right thing, they need to deny the GOP an easy cudgel to wield in the upcoming midterms. Any energy spent defending themselves on this easily-resolved issue is energy that could have far better spent taking the fight to the GOP.