The House may finally vote — next week — on legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks

The House may consider banning members of Congress from trading stock in the near future.

The chair of the Democratic caucus announced on the House floor that the body may consider legislation to reform the STOCK Act.

A bill could come in September.

The framework for fighting financial conflicts of interest and restoring public faith and trust in government was released by the chair of the Committee on House Administration.

Financial conflicts of interest in relation to stock trading and ownership have been reported across the entire federal government. These stories undermine the American people's faith and trust in the integrity of public officials.

The framework includes what advocates of stock-ban legislation want, such as including spouses and dependent children.

There are other framework provisions.

• Mandatory electronic filing of financial disclosures, as some officials submit all-but-illegible disclosures.
• Requiring "more granularity" when disclosing financial trades. Currently, lawmakers are only required to disclosure the values of their trades in broad ranges, such as $100,000 to $250,000 or $1 million to $5 million.
• A ban on senior government officials, including members of Congress and their immediate families, from trading cryptocurrencies.

The Supreme Court justices are included in Lofgren's framework. It's a move that could be used to prevent the legislation from passing the Senate.

—bryan metzger (@metzgov) September 22, 2022

The framework calls for increasing the penalty for violating the STOCK Act from $200 to $1,000 for every 30 day period in which a member of Congress is not in compliance.

A number of bills that have been introduced to date address some of these issues and include thoughtful proposals, but no one bill addresses each of these elements with this level of detail. The framework for reform will be the subject of a bill.

Members who have been working on related legislation have yet to see the full text of the bill.

The new legislation won't be considered by members of the House until next week.

The last-minute push to pass a congressional stock trading ban comes after months of members pressuring leadership to act, as well as Insider's "Conflicted Congress" investigation, which has found dozens of members of Congress in violation of the STOCK Act.

Several prominent proponents of a stock trading ban recently told Insider that they were mostly left out of Democratic leadership's legislative plans.

"I'm concerned about the lack of detail as to what is being planned," said Democratic Rep. The clock is winding down quickly.

"I don't want to play games, that's why I'm not unreasonable on this." Let's not lie.

"We don't know what's going on," said Pramila Jayapal. I don't know if I'm confident.

The Senate version of a stock trading ban is unlikely to come until after the elections in November, according to Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley.