Democrats are turning on each other with less than six weeks until the midterm elections.
On Friday, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) harshly criticized Democrat leaders House Democrats scrapped plans to vote on legislation banning lawmaker stock trading. In the shocking rebuke, the Virginia Democrat called for new leadership in Congress.
“This moment marks a failure of House leadership — and it’s yet another example of why I believe that the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known,” Spanberger said in a statement.
The Virginia lawmaker introduced and strongly advocated for legislation that would prevent lawmakers, their spouses, and their dependent children from buying, selling, or trading individual stocks. If passed the legislation would require them to divest from their investments or place them into a blind trust within 90 days of taking office in an attempt to avoid conflicts of interest or members of Congress using the office for financial gain.
Rep. Spanberger then turned her attention directly towards House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA), who has been the subject of intense scrutiny over her own stocks, according to The Washington Examiner. (RELATED: Pelosi’s Husband’s Stock Trades Ahead of Key Vote ‘Stinks to High Heaven’)
“After first signaling her opposition to these reforms, the Speaker purportedly reversed her position. However, our bipartisan reform coalition was then subjected to repeated delay tactics, hand-waving gestures, and blatant instances of Lucy pulling the football.”
“Rather than bring Members of Congress together who are passionate about this issue, leadership chose to ignore these voices, push them aside, and look for new ways they could string the media and the public along — and evade public criticism,” she added.
Then Rep. Spanberger accused House Democrats of using “diversionary tactics” in creating a similar but wider-ranging bill that would also extend to judges, including Supreme Court justices.
“As part of their diversionary tactics, the House Administration Committee was tasked with creating a new piece of legislation — and they ultimately introduced a kitchen-sink package that they knew would immediately crash upon arrival, with only days remaining before the end of the legislative session and no time to fix it,” Spanberger said.
“It was written to create confusion surrounding reform efforts and complicate a straightforward reform priority — banning Members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks — all while creating the appearance that House Leadership wanted to take action,” she said. “In the months ahead, I will be dogged in my efforts to ban Members of Congress from using the privilege of their position to profit. I look forward to working with both my Democratic and Republican colleagues to get these reforms done.”
Rep. Spanberger is the latest Democrat to publicly advocate for new-and younger Democrat leadership. Pelosi, who is 82 years old, has remained silent over when he will eventually retire but there has been some speculation the announcement could come before the next presidential election.
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This article originally appeared in American Liberty News. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of The Republican Standard. Republished with permission.