Voter ID requirement attached to stock-trading ban draws Democratic opposition
The House voted 232-198 Wednesday to approve legislation barring members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks, advancing an ethics proposal that lawmakers in both parties have long championed but repeatedly failed to enact.
The vote came as lawmakers prepared to return home and campaign ahead of the midterm elections, with Republicans working to show action on an issue that has become a symbol of voter distrust, according to the Associated Press.
The breakthrough was tempered by Republican provisions in the bill that would exempt the president from the trading ban and include a voter identification requirement, drawing opposition from many Democrats. The bill’s passage in the Senate remains uncertain, according to the AP.
Rep. Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat, spoke against the bill on the House floor ahead of the vote.
“This bill, quite simply, is a sham,” Morelle said. He called the voter identification provision a “poison pill” designed to sink the legislation.
Some Democrats sided with the Republican majority in the 232-198 vote, according to the AP. MSI previously reported on lawmakers’ stock trading ethics in a January article covering a bipartisan Senate effort to ban the practice.