Who Votes “Nay”

There is a rare bill being sponsored in the House of Representatives. What makes this particular bill rare is that it is both bi-partisan AND it will hold members of Congress accountable for their personal finances. On the face of it, the bill will restrict members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks.

The Representatives sponsoring the bill are also of note; specifically because Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Representative Gaetz are the well known names backing the bill. Why do those two names matter? Because they are YOUNG. Neither of them are part of the established career politician crowds that have infected our system for decades, like former Speaker Pelosi and current President Biden.

Don’t get me wrong, there are members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and in both houses who have abused the information they have access to so they can gain wealth. You don’t become rich as a career politician, living solely on a politician salary. The money just isn’t there. Go ahead and check the pay scale for anyone in Congress or the White House and explain to me how they start poor and end rich.

There are a few ways, none of which are moral or ethical, let alone legal in some cases. This particular bill would eliminate the ability for members of Congress to take advanced, detailed, and sometimes classified information to make investment decisions. They may be able to invest in diversified funds but not in specific stocks.

What we ALL need to pay attention to, is who votes which way on this bill. ALL of us need to take a hard look at the voting record. This is about accountability for the members of Congress that represent us. Is a “nay” vote an admission of guilt? Of course not. Is it what the intelligence community would call an “indicator”. You’d want to couple it with some additional information before you determined there was something shady going on. Maybe that unexplained wealth after years of career politics coupled with a “nay” would make you examine your Congressional representative a little more deeply.

Truthfully, this bill shouldn’t be necessary, but things are what they are. The best-case scenario is every member of the House of Representatives, followed by the Senate, all raise their hands and vote to support the bill. They all should, right? They should all volunteer, without hesitation, to be regulated and monitored to ensure they are keeping things on the up and up, right? That’s the kind of ethical leadership we all expect right?

I do like that this is coming from the younger members of Congress. Honestly, I would have lost a lot of money if had bet on AOC and Matt Gaetz agreeing on anything, let alone co-sponsoring a bill with any real merit. This also doesn’t raise my overall opinion of either of them very much. Some, but not much.

But, we owe it to ourselves and to each other to watch who votes which way. Actually, we owe it to the nation to not only watch who votes which way, but to deliberately ask for an explanation from anyone that votes “nay”. I don’t care which side of the aisle they are on. I don’t care which side of the aisle you are on. WE need to hold THEM accountable on this one.

We need to watch who votes “nay”.