My question when I see stories like this is how one of the slimiest creatures in the GOP’s reptile house can win a majority of votes in an honest election, even in a conservative Congressional district:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) faced criticism on Wednesday for introducing a version of the STOCK Act which many said had severely weakened the legislation.

“Rep. Cantor has opposed the STOCK Act from the start and his bill reflects that,” said Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “The majority leader is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He is trying to take credit for finally responding to an issue that has outraged Americans, while
behind closed doors he has taken the side of Wall Street and neutered the tough Senate bill.”

In a rare showing of bipartisanship, the Senate voted 93 to 3 last week to approve the STOCK Act.

The bill prohibits lawmakers and their staff from trading stocks based on information they learn during congressional briefings and related work, among others things. It corrects the ambiguity in existing laws by empowering the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to ensure that members of Congress and their staff can be held accountable for illegally trading on non-public information.

Cantor’s version of the legislation, however, 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.