Bipartisan Bills To Ban Stock Ownership, Trading For Congress On The Move

A bipartisan bill to ban stock ownership and trading for members of Congress and their immediate family members is moving through the Senate.

U.S. Senators Ashley Moody (R-FL) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Restore Trust in Congress Act, which is companion legislation to the bipartisan bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Chip Roy (R-TX-21) and Seth Magaziner (D-RI-02) in the U.S. House of Representatives. The House bill currently has 126 total cosponsors. To date, 79 representatives–both Democrats and Republicans—have signed a discharge petition filed by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL-13) to bring this bill to the House floor for a vote.

The STOCK Act, passed in 2012, bars members of Congress from using insider information to buy and sell stocks. Despite this legislation, Gillibrand says one in three members of Congress traded stocks or other financial assets from 2019 to 2021, and at least 3,700 of those trades posed potential conflicts of interest with their legislative responsibilities. The Restore Trust in Congress Act would help eliminate these conflicts of interest by prohibiting congressional stock holding and trading entirely.

Specifically, the bill would:

• Ban members of Congress, their spouses, their dependent children, and their trustees from owning, buying, and selling individual stocks and certain other financial assets, including securities, commodities, and futures. This includes assets held in qualified blind trusts. There are limited exceptions, including widely held, diversified investment funds like mutual funds and ETFs, as well as U.S. Treasury, state, and municipal bonds.
• Require that current members of Congress and their families divest these assets within 180 days of the law’s enactment. For future members of Congress and their families, divestment of these assets would be required within 90 days of their swearing in.
• Impose a fine for violations equal to 10% of the value of the asset and require that any profits from the transaction be disgorged to the U.S. Treasury.