XPost: alt.politics.usa.congress, alt.politics.democrats, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics, alt.law-enforcement   
   From: remailer@domain.invalid   
      
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   A bipartisan movement to ban members of Congress from trading stocks   
   failed to pass the House of Representatives this week, assuring that   
   no action will be taken on the issue until after the midterm   
   elections — if at all.   
      
   House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hoped to pass a bill before   
   members left for a lengthy recess. But some in her own party are now   
   accusing her of manufacturing repeated delays and unnecessary   
   roadblocks.   
      
   Pelosi, who previously opposed a prohibition on congressional stock   
   trading, surprised many who have been pushing for a ban by   
   introducing her own lengthy ethics bill earlier this week.   
      
   Pelosi’s bill looks like an expansive proposal on its face. It would   
   bar virtually all senior government officials from trading stocks,   
   not just those in Congress.   
      
   But it contains wide loopholes that have infuriated ethics   
   watchdogs, and critics said expanding the proposed ban to the   
   executive and judiciary branches seems designed to draw new   
   opposition and slow its chances of passing.   
      
   Sure enough, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who decides which bills go   
   to a vote, told reporters Tuesday that the proposal had arrived too   
   late and introduced too many new issues for him to schedule a vote   
   before the November midterms.   
      
   The bill was also written without input from many key lawmakers in   
   the ongoing push to ban congressional stock trades, according to   
   good-government groups and members of Congress.   
      
   One of those members, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who   
   introduced a ban with Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) in January 2021,   
   strafed Hoyer and Pelosi on Friday for introducing “a kitchen-sink   
   package that they knew would fail.”   
      
   “I don’t think this bill was written to pass the House,” she told   
   Business Insider. In another interview, she called for new party   
   leadership.   
      
   “Absolutely this was a bill designed not to pass.”   
      
   - Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, manager of government affairs at the   
   Project on Government Oversight   
   Watchdogs echoed her suspicions that Pelosi and Hoyer were trying to   
   snuff out any chance of reform.   
      
   “Absolutely this was a bill designed not to pass,” said Dylan   
   Hedtler-Gaudette, manager of government affairs at the Project on   
   Government Oversight. “Pelosi is very good at her job when she wants   
   to get something done. … The approach they took was not designed to   
   get anything done. It was designed to say, ‘We tried.’”   
      
   Among the issues critics highlighted is the fact that the bill would   
   obliterate the high standard for blind trusts in favor of a standard   
   that would allow government officials to conceal their assets from   
   the public.   
      
   “This bill is the equivalent of a wrecking ball for the executive   
   branch ethics program,” said Walter Shaub, a senior ethics fellow at   
   the Project on Government Oversight who ran the U.S. Office of   
   Government Ethics until he publicly clashed with former President   
   Donald Trump’s administration.   
      
   Parts of the bill dealing with the judiciary are written poorly,   
   other critics said, including language that is likely   
   unconstitutional.   
      
      
   “It’s just inviting new resistance when we know the problem is most   
   acute in the legislative branch,” he said.   
      
   What’s more, Congress has already passed part of a package to reform   
   ethics requirements for federal judges. A second bill, which would   
   expand those reforms to the Supreme Court, is still awaiting a vote.   
      
   On Friday, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), a co-author of those judicial   
   reforms, went on Twitter to needle House leadership about bringing   
   the Supreme Court ethics bill to a vote.   
      
   Pelosi shot back Friday against accusations that her bill was   
   designed to fail, saying her proposal had taken Spanberger’s   
   proposed reforms and “made the bill stronger.”   
      
   “Whatever the members want to do, I fully support,” she said.   
      
   But good-government groups are accepting that a congressional stock   
   ban has little hope under the current Congress.   
      
      
   https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pelosi-congress-insider-   
   trading_n_63374676e4b0e376dbf6c714   
      
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