Reported by: Ben Werschkul

Before Democratic canvassers left to search for any last-minute undecided voters on Sunday, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) gave a pep talk on the hot-button topics that might come up — such as infrastructure, prescription drug prices, and gun violence.

But after she finished, a canvasser named Frank Krogh asked about another issue in this northern Virginia town: stock trading by lawmakers.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance later, Krogh said he likes to broach the topic because “it’s a two-fer.” That is, it’s a bipartisan issue that Spanberger is involved in and also addresses voters’ overall distrust of Washington.

Congress’s failure to regulate its own trading activity is a talking point for Spanberger, who’s been outspoken on the need to police the practice. The 43-year-old Democrat co-sponsored a bipartisan bill aiming to block the practice, one of several proposals seeking to stop or further police the stock trading activity of lawmakers. Those in favor of a ban or new regulations argue that lawmakers often have access to non-public information that could give them an edge in the stock market.

“Basically any place that I might be, somebody wants to talk about it,” Spanberger told Yahoo Finance Sunday, between conversations with voters. “People say: ‘Well I don’t agree with everything you’re doing but I like that banning members of Congress from trading stocks.’”

A recent poll from Morning Consult found that two in three voters back a stock trading ban for officials across the government. Support for a ban has grown following a steady stream of news reports throughout the year revealing members of Congress and government officials trade stocks while working on issues that moved the prices of those securities.

Read full report: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/congressional-stock-trading-is-a-talking-point-in-last-days-of-the-campaign-211216583.html