Rep. Cohen rails against House GOP leadership over STOCK Act

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) blasted Republicans on the House floor Thursday for watering down and subsequently passing the STOCK Act.

"What the public saw today in the House of Representatives was the STOCK Act sold short," he said.

"Unfortunately, what could have been an outstanding bill was changed by the Republican leadership by taking the two most important aspects put in the Senate bill out," Cohen continued. "One was a public corruption provision that would have allowed prosecutors to prosecute from the courthouse to the capital public corruption... But for some reason unbeknownst to me, it was stripped by the leadership of the Republican side out of the bill. Democrats didn't even have an opportunity to participate in the drafting of the bill."

The House voted 417 to 2 on Thursday to pass the STOCK Act, even though it did not include provisions that require registration by political intelligence consultants, strip pension benefits from corrupt members of Congress and close loopholes in the nation’s anti-corruption laws.

The Senate previously voted 93 to 3 approve the STOCK Act with those measures included.

"The American public should have had better today," Cohen concluded. "We passed something, but not what we should have done."

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