Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) joins members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to discuss the Ending Trading and Holding of Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Details, Washington, USA, April 18, 2023.
Sarah Silbig | Reuters
A bipartisan group of senators launched a new effort Wednesday to ban members of Congress from trading stocks.
“Congress should not be here to make money,” Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. “Members of Congress have no reason to profit from information that only they have access to.”
The proposal is the latest chapter in a years-long saga in Congress passing regulations that limit lawmakers’ ability to buy and sell stocks. It will be the first of the items to be formally considered by a Senate committee — in this case, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on July 24.
Ethics experts say members of Congress have access to vast amounts of information in the course of their work that is unavailable to the public, giving them an unfair investment advantage.
Wednesday’s amendments to an existing stock trading ban bill would immediately ban members of Congress, the president and vice president from purchasing stocks and other covered investments. It also gives lawmakers 90 days to sell the stock.
Senators Hawley, Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley and Michigan Democratic Senator Gary Peters. New details were negotiated and announced.
If passed, the bill would also ban spouses and dependent children of lawmakers from trading stocks starting in March 2027.
Under the senators’ proposal, penalties for violating the divestment mandate would cost lawmakers the greater of their monthly salary or 10 percent of the value of each asset in violation.
Efforts to ban members of Congress from trading stocks have been an uphill battle at least since the Biden administration took office.
Senator Ossoff first introduced the ban in 2021 and placed his own stock portfolio in a blind trust as an example.
The effort is further fueled by revelations that several senators made very lucrative deals early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when members of Congress were receiving confidential briefings warning of how disastrous the virus could be for the U.S. economy Consequences of sex. The FBI launched an insider trading investigation into three senators but ended it without criminal charges.
The effort gained greater support ahead of the 2022 midterm elections after former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dropped her opposition.
Pelosi is married to Paul Pelosi, a multimillionaire investor who regularly makes large and profitable stock trades. The then-speaker had previously said the trade ban was a misguided move aimed at preventing lawmakers from participating in a “free market economy.”
About The Author
