Alana Goodman of the Washington Examiner today reports:
Rep. Matt Cartwright has spent years sponsoring truck insurance legislation that would directly benefit his family’s law firm, in which he owns a multimillion dollar stake, according to financial and lobbying records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
In June and July, the Pennsylvania Democrat introduced two bills that would require commercial truck drivers to purchase insurance liability coverage at a minimum of $4.5 million, a 600% hike from the current $750,000 minimum. Cartwright previously introduced a similar proposal just months after joining Congress in 2013.
From the story:
The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, said Cartwright’s involvement in the legislation posed an overt conflict of interest.
“Usually when House members try to push legislation from which they would benefit personally, they are a little more creative,” said Peter Flaherty, chairman of the NLPC. “Did Rep. Cartwright think no one would notice that before he entered Congress he sued trucking companies for a living? This is pretty clumsy.”