The House passed a bill Wednesday that would ban members of Congress from buying individual stocks and would require voters to show photo identification when casting a ballot, winning passage by a 232-198 vote.
The legislation was approved alongside the National Defense Authorization Act.
One report called it a GOP stock trading ban bill and said dozens of House Democrats rejected fusing the congressional stock ban with a federal voter ID.
The measure, titled the Stop Insider Trading Act, was championed by House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil of Wisconsin and would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and their dependent children from buying new stocks while allowing lawmakers to keep stocks they already own.
Thirteen Democrats voted with all Republicans in favor of the bill. Steil said on the floor, "This is the first congressional stock trading ban to receive a vote on the floor of the House. If you want to day trade, there is a place for that on Wall Street."
Administration Committee ranking Democrat Joe Morelle of New York called the bill a "sham" because it "allows members of Congress to continue owning and trading stocks." Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, the chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus, said, "It doesn't ban stock trading because you could still acquire stocks, sell stocks, use information that you have that you garner here in Congress to make a profit. And stock trading involves purchase and sales, and it does not prohibit sales." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called it a "bait-and-switch" and said she "proudly voted no" because of the attached voting provisions.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said he regretted that GOP leadership made the vote a "partisan exercise" by attaching the voter ID language and said, "It should apply to everybody. That was my preference, and always had been. We stuck on focusing on Congress because you know, get your own house in order, and then you know you can kind of start pointing fingers elsewhere, but I would like it to apply to everybody in the executive branch, judiciary branch, and here."
According to the bill text, the voter ID provision requires voters to show a valid physical photo identification when casting a ballot for federal office; mail-in and absentee voters can attach a photocopy of their ID to their ballot, and an eligible voter who forgets to bring ID can cast a provisional ballot. Some Democrats opposed the measure in part because it does not address stock trading in the executive branch, with Leger Fernandez saying, "The biggest glaring absence is that the president and vice president can continue to stock trade." The article noted President Donald Trump's recent financial disclosure report shows his investment advisers made more than 21,000 trades on his behalf last year. Because of the voter ID language, the bill faces a rocky path in the Senate, and the story said Republican efforts to eliminate or modify the filibuster to pass related election legislation have met objections from Senate leaders who say they lack the votes.
Julia Manchester and Dave Levinthal joined "The Takeout" to discuss the measure.