A bipartisan group of 20 US senators has reached a new accord regarding legislation prohibiting all members of Congress from trading stocks
A group of bipartisan senators from the United States has resumed their efforts to enact legislation prohibiting members of Congress from trading securities.
A bipartisan group of 20 senators proposed an amendment to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on July 9. The amendment is intended to prevent lawmakers from engaging in stock trading.
“The purpose of Congress should not be to generate revenue,” stated”US Senator Josh Hawley during a press conference. “There is no justification for members of Congress to profit from information that is exclusively available to them and not available to the rest of the American public.”
Senators also observed that 97 members of Congress had traded equities in which the committees they oversaw had a direct impact and that the members of Congress had outperformed the S&P 500 on average by 17.5%.
The senators referenced a recent investigation that discovered that between 2021 and 2023, one in seven sitting members of Congress had violated the STOCK Act.
The proposed amendment to the STOCK Act would prohibit serving congresspeople from trading within 90 days of the bill’s.
Additionally, it would prohibit the trading of securities by the current President, Vice President, and the spouses and dependent children of all current Congress members, effective March 2027.
The penalty for violating the new laws would be a fine of 10% of the value of the asset traded, a substantial increase from the current penalty of $250 per transgression.
In their letter, the Senators made it exceedingly clear that additional measures are required to prevent this behavior, which is unethical and undermines the public in our democratic institutions.
In a statement issued on July 9, Senator Golden stated, “Members” of Congress should be committed to serving their constituents, rather than exploiting their positions to enrich themselves.”
“Anyone who feels the same should have no problem voting for this common sense, long overdue step.”
In a letter addressed to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, members of the House initially suggested significant amendments to the STOCK Act in January 2022.
The campaign to prohibit Congress members from trading was facilitated by the widespread publication of public disclosures that disclosed the highly profitable trades of several prominent legislators during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The most notable of these was Congresswoman Pelosi, who, despite earning an annual congressional salary of $193,000, garnered widespread public attention after it was revealed that her successful trading activity had contributed to her net wealth expanding to over $250 million.
Pelosi maintains numerous stock-picking and copy-trading services designed to replicate her trading behavior to generate revenue.
