Rep. Spanberger breaks with fellow Dem, says lawmakers should 'consider different job' if don't want stock ban

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., said lawmakers should "consider another job" if they refuse to give up trading individual stocks.

Spanberger has cosponsored bipartisan legislation with Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, to require members of Congress — as well as their spouses and dependent children — to put certain investment assets into a blind trust during their entire tenure in Congress. 

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"If a ban on individual stock trading by Members of Congress is a dealbreaker for lawmakers, they should consider a different job," Spanberger tweeted Tuesday. "We must pass legislation, like our TRUST in Congress Act, to break the cycle of Members profiting off insider information."

Spanberger's legislation has nearly 60 cosponsors and Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., introduced companion legislation in the Senate. But there's still resistance among lawmakers — many of whom are very wealthy — on banning stock trading all together for members and whether any ban should extend to spouses. 

Fellow Virginia Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria previously offered some blunt criticism about the proposal.

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It's "bulls---," she told Punchbowl News in February. Her comments came in response to a question about banning stock trading, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has come around to.

"So my thoughts on it, you know, I think this whole concept is bulls---. Because I think that, why would you assume that members of Congress are going to be inherently bad or corrupt? We already have the STOCK Act that requires people to report stock trades."

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Under the STOCK Act, it's illegal for members of Congress and their families to profit from inside information, and it requires lawmakers to report stock trades to Congress within 45 days. In some recent cases, lawmakers have failed to report their trades altogether.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which aims to have Republicans retake the House, pounced on the perceived divisions between Spanberger and Luria. 

"For once, Abigail Spanberger is right," CLF press secretary Cally Perkins said in a statement. "Elaine Luria should consider another job."

Spanberger's office declined to comment on the tweet.

Pelosi was once opposed to a ban on stock trades for members of Congress but now said she's open to it — even as her family's stocks have come under scrutiny.

Pelosi doesn't trade stocks herself, but her husband Paul does. He's the owner and operator of a San Francisco investment firm that has helped the Pelosi's amass enormous wealth.

In a sign momentum is building for restrictions, the House Administration Committee held a three-hour hearing on banning stock trading for members of Congress on April 7. 

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Rep. Rodney Davis, the House Administration Committee's ranking Republican, said that certain measures requiring lawmakers to use qualified blind trusts to avoid potential conflicts of interest could be expensive and time-consuming. 

"I just don't believe that forcing middle-class members to divest their ownership portion of a family farm or to divest ownership in a business that their spouse may be a part of or their dependent children be a part of," Davis, R-Ill., said. "I just think it's untenable."

Fox Businesses' Megan Henney and Sam Dorman contributed to this report.