Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on Thursday reintroduced their bill to prohibit members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
The Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act would require members, their spouses and their dependent children to place their stocks into a qualified blind trust or divest the holding.
The ban would not apply to diversified mutual funds, diversified exchange-traded funds, U.S. Treasury securities, compensation from a family member’s primary occupation, or investments in government employee retirement plans.
The senators said the ban aims to limit potential conflicts of interest and ensure members don’t use “inside information to influence their stock trades and make a profit,” according to a press release.
“Members of Congress should not be playing the stock market while we make Federal policy and have extraordinary access to confidential information,” Ossoff said in a statement.
“Stock trading by members of Congress massively erodes public confidence in Congress and creates a serious appearance of impropriety, which is why we should ban stock trading by members of Congress altogether,” he continued.
Kelly said Americans shouldn’t have to worry about the potential for their representatives to use privileged information to “make a quick buck.”
“This isn’t rocket science,” Kelly said in a statement. “The only way to stop insider trading in Congress is to stop members of Congress from trading stocks. Period. Fixing this would go a long way toward restoring trust—and fixing what’s broken in Washington.”
The senators pointed to polls that show that the vast majority of registered voters support a ban on lawmakers trading individual stocks, even as various legislative efforts to achieve that goal have been stalled in recent years.
One such poll, conducted by the University of Maryland in July 2023, showed a ban on members trading individual stocks was favored by 87 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of independents.
The bill is co-sponsored by fellow Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Raphael Warnock (Ga.) and Michael Bennet (Colo.).
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) led a similar effort to block members of Congress from trading stocks, reintroducing a bill last month called the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act.
Both initiatives come after President Trump said last month that he would “absolutely” sign a congressional stock trading ban if it came across his desk.
“Well, I watched Nancy Pelosi get rich through insider information, and I would be OK with it. If they send that to me, I would do it,” Trump told Time magazine about his first 100 days in office.
Asked if he would sign such a bill, Trump replied, “Absolutely.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) dropped her opposition to legislation banning members of Congress from trading stocks in 2022. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, is an investor who has made significant money off of stock trades.
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