Prince William Reporter

Last week, the Congresswoman Spoke at a Bipartisan Press Conference Focused on Pushing Congress to Take Legislative Action to Ban Members of Congress & Their Spouses from Trading Individual Stocks

**DOWNLOADABLE VIDEO: Spanberger Champions Her “TRUST in Congress Act,” Denounces Democrats & Republicans Who Traded Individual Stocks During Financial Crisis**

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger — the leader of the most bipartisan and most popular legislative proposal in Congress to ban congressional stock trading — yesterday called on both Republican and Democratic leaders to bring legislation to the floor of the U.S. House that would ban Members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from trading individual stocks.

At a press conference alongside Republicans and Democrats, Spanberger attacked suspiciously timed trades in the days surrounding the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. Additionally, she highlighted growing momentum behind her bipartisan Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (TRUST) in Congress Act — which would effectively ban Members of Congress from trading individual stocks. Her bill — which she reintroduced earlier this year with U.S. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX-21) — now has more than 55 Democratic and Republican cosponsors, the most of any proposal to ban congressional stock trading.

Click here to watch her comments, and a full transcript is below.

—

The reason we’re here is because we continue to see story after story hit the headlines of Members of Congress who bought or sold stocks related to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.

Before that, it was the invasion of Ukraine. Before that, it was COVID. Time and time again, we see reporting — and I appreciate the free press, so thank you for reporting — on places where Members of Congress are buying or selling stocks associated with briefings they may have gotten, events that are occurring… and, frankly speaking, whether there was any ill intention or not, the American people think it’s outrageous.

And as many of my colleagues have mentioned, this is about more than just stomping out impropriety. This is about stamping out even the perception of impropriety, because the idea that we could go to a meeting with the CEO or we could sit down in a classified briefing — and we could leave that meeting, we could leave that briefing, or we could head towards a vote and call a stockbroker and say, “Yeah, let’s buy this, let’s sell that.” It just doesn’t seem appropriate.

So here we are, time and time again, where we know that the American people have an ever-degrading trust in Congress, in our system, in the strength of our democracy — and this is one small way that we can say we’ve heard you, we want to make sure that you know that every time we’re in that briefing room or every time we are in that classified meeting or anytime we are going to take a vote, we are doing what we think is right. And if they agree with us or they disagree with us, that’s their decision to make. But we are doing what we think is right based on the needs of our districts and our constituents — and not at all influenced by or in service to our stock portfolios.

The easiest, most straightforward way to achieve this is to ban Members of Congress from trading stocks, and I am so proud that we continue to have an ever-growing coalition.

The bill that I lead with Congressman Chip Roy has more than 55 cosponsors — Democrats, Republicans across the board, geography-wise across the board, political ideology-wise — because this commonsense solution of banning Members of Congress from trading stocks just makes sense. So I thank my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, for their commitment to this principle and their desire to work together to really help take one step forward in restoring the trust the American people deserve to have in our Congress.

—

Last month, Spanberger pressed the U.S. House Committee on House Administration to hold a hearing on efforts to ban Members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from buying and selling individual stocks while serving in Congress.

And earlier this year, Spanberger and Roy testified before the U.S. House Committee on House Administration to make the case for her TRUST in Congress Act. She testified as part of the Committee’s Member Day, which focused on proposed legislation within its jurisdiction. 

Original source can be found here