With multiple bills from both chambers and both parties, the calls to limit or ban members of Congress from trading stocks while in office are gaining support. There are three bills addressing the issue: one from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), another from Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA), and a third from House members Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Chip Roy (R-TX).
In 2012, President Barack Obama signed the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.
“The STOCK Act makes it clear that if members of Congress use nonpublic information to gain an unfair advantage in the market, then they are breaking the law,” President Obama said at the bill signing.
Under the STOCK Act, Members must quickly and publicly announce all stock trades made by themselves, their spouse, or their dependent children. But some Members felt that the STOCK Act didn’t go far enough, and have introduced legislation to further address the issue.
Reps. Spanberger and Roy’s bill, the TRUST in Congress Act, would require all Members, their spouses, and dependent children to put certain investment assets into a blind trust and then keep them in the trust until the Member has been out of office for six months.
Sens. Ossoff and Kelly have introduced the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, which bans Members, their spouses, and dependent children from buying and selling stocks while in office.
Senator Hawley’s bill, Banning Insider Trading in Congress Act, is similar to the other Senate bill but allows dependent children to buy and sell stocks while a parent is in office.
“It’s important that we should not endeavor to avoid impropriety, but the mere appearance of impropriety. And the way that we do that is we say, as members of Congress, we should not be able to own individual stocks,” Rep. Spanberger said in support of her bill.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) disagreed with Spanberger.
“This is a free market and people – we are a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that,” Pelosi said during a December news conference.
Polling from the Convention of States Action found that 76 percent of people think members of Congress and their spouses should be banned from stock trades while in office. That includes 78 percent of Republicans polled and 69 percent of Democrats.
