Thread by @dsamuelsohn

NEW: A battle over stock trading in Congress is consuming the '22 midterms. It's providing fodder for press releases, fundraising, & opposition research. It has inspired powerful attack ads & even spawned Trumpian nicknames. by @leonardkl @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/stock-ban-cong…

Both D &R campaigns are salivating at the thought of bludgeoning opponents for violating stock trading laws or failing to support reforms. "They smell blood in the water here, which in some ways is good," said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight.

The signs that the issue is taking off not just on Capitol Hill but in candidates' home turfs are increasingly widespread. Here are a few:

NJ GOP has taken to calling Rep. Tom Malinowski "Trading Tom" & "The Wolf of Washington" as the independent Office of Congressional Ethics found "substantial reason to believe" that he failed to properly disclose dozens of personal stock trades he made during 2019 and 2020.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, sent a campaign fundraising email earlier this month asking her supporters to sign onto a stock trading ban.

The Iowa Republican Party has chided Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat of Iowa, for her stock trading.
iowagop.org/house_dems_say…
"Pelosi folds!" read a fundraising email from Sen. Josh Hawley after Pelosi announced she'd reverse her defense of congressional stock trading & support a ban.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum is Shahid Buttar, a D political activist & Pelosi primary challenger. businessinsider.com/nancy-pelosi-c…

But as these candidates play politics with stock ban policy, irony lurks: Numerous members of both parties have been guilty of violating the decade-old STOCK Act by failing to routinely report their stock trades. By our count, it's 55 lawmakers. businessinsider.com/congress-stock…