A bipartisan group of senators reached an agreement on new legislation Wednesday that would ban lawmakers from trading in stocks.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, along with Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, D-Calif., pushed the new bill after a series of failed attempts to block lawmakers from exercising their advantages over ordinary citizens.
“Congress shouldn’t exist to make money,” Sen. Hawley, R-Missouri, said at a Capitol press conference. “There’s no reason for members of Congress to profit from information that only they have access to.”
of This bill was passed by members of Congress.The president and vice president, as well as their spouses and dependents, are prohibited from buying and selling stocks while in office.
The bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee later this month.
If passed, the bipartisan bill would immediately ban lawmakers from trading stocks and give them 90 days to sell any stocks they own.
The bill would ban stock trading by members of Congress’ spouses and dependents starting in March 2027 and require the president, vice president and members of Congress to divest from targeted investments.
The penalty for failing to sell the investments will be the greater of the representative’s monthly salary or 10% of the value of each offending asset.
The proposal piggybacks off of the STOCK Act, an existing law that bans insider trading among members of Congress, and proposes amendments to increase penalties for violations of the STOCK Act.
The bill is part of a long-running fight to ban lawmakers from trading stocks amid claims that they have an unfair advantage in stock transactions because of their access to confidential information.
“Why should lawmakers spend their time day trading instead of focusing on the priorities the American people have entrusted us to accomplish and focus on?” Hawley said.
Since taking office as a senator in 2021, Ossoff has pushed for a similar stock trading ban.
During the pandemic, calls for a stock trading ban grew among lawmakers, with some The senators sold their shares for a profit. In the early days of the crisis, right before the market crashed.
The Department of Justice opened an investigation into the transaction, but no charges were filed and the matter was closed.
Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi subsequently withdrew her opposition to the stock trading ban ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (whose husband, Paul Pelosi, is a billionaire investor) initially opposed the ban.
Hawley introduced a similar anti-stock trading bill in early 2023 called the “Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities Investments Act,” commonly known as the Pelosi Bill.
