Spanberger and Roy co-sponsored legislation in the House of Representatives last year called the "Trust in Congress Act," another bill that would require members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children to place certain assets into blind trusts.
Their support comes after a group of more than two dozen lawmakers wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in January, demanding they "swiftly" hold a vote on any of the pieces of bipartisan legislation.
The letter was signed by 27 members of Congress—25 Democrats and two Republicans. The lawmakers also noted that in 2020, senators from both parties "made significant stock sales after receiving closed briefings on Covid-19 but before the pandemic was fully understood by the public and impacting the market.”
Lawmakers caught making post-Covid-related briefing trades include Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Sen. James Inhofe, (R-Okla.) and then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.).
Pelosi faced sharp criticism from both Republicans and her own party for saying members of Congress and their spouses should be allowed to trade stock as part of a "free market economy."
Pelosi did an about-face last month, when she suggested that she will consider proposals banning members of Congress from trading stocks while in office.
McCarthy has also used the momentum on the issue to promise that if the GOP flips the House in November, he will make a stock-trading ban for lawmakers and their families a top priority.
McCarthy said he could put such a ban into effect almost immediately using the package of House rules voted on at the beginning of the next Congress.