Pelosi Won’t Commit to Backing Stock Trade Ban For Lawmakers
© REUTERS / ELIZABETH FRANTZ
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., still refuses to commit to supporting a bill that would ban lawmakers and their spouses from stock trading, claiming the situation is “complicated.”
Pelosi, whose husband made up to $30 million trading shares of Big Tech companies, was asked about the bipartisan proposal again on Wednesday.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “I’m a big believer in our committees. And we’ve tasked the House administration committee to review the options that members are putting forth and they have different views on the subject.”
When pressed on whether she would vote for or against the bill, Pelosi dodged the question.
“What matters to me is what my members think,” she said.
“If that’s what the members want to do, then that’s what we will do,” she added. “It’s complicated and members will figure it out and then we will go forward with what the consensus is.”
One of Pelosi’s members, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., blasted her for dragging out the process and argued there is more than enough bipartisan support to hold a vote.
“I’m not sure why there has to be this new effort to review what’s possible,” she said. “We’ve got a bill that, day by day, gets more and more co-sponsors, Democrats and Republicans.”
“I hope it’s not so that we can spend a lot of time talking about this issue without actually doing something,” Spanberger added. “If we wanted to take action, we would put the most bipartisan bill forth.”
In December, Pelosi came out against the stock trade ban, defending lawmakers’ right to trade stocks as a privilege of the “free market.”
“We’re a free-market economy,” Pelosi said at the time. “[Members of Congress] should be able to participate in that.”
Recent financial disclosures show that Pelosi’s husband holds stock in Amazon and Apple that are each worth between $5 million and $25 million. She also holds stock options in Google‘s parent company worth between $1 million and $5 million, Comcast stock worth between $1 million and $5 million, and stock in Visa worth between $5 million and $25 million.
