In a rare moment of bipartisanship, President Barack Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act into law 10 years ago today. Obama said before taking up his presidential pen that it shows that when an idea is right, we can still accomplish something. The law required members of Congress, their immediate families, and staff to reveal their financial information. It was clear that Capitol Hill was not free of illegal trading. It made it clear how members of Congress could invest their money. Congress is considering whether the STOCK Act went far enough after an investigation into the personal finances of federal lawmakers. While current law allows members of Congress to trade individual stocks, Insider's Conflicted Congress investigation found that more than one in 10 lawmakers have recently violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions, which requires members of Congress to publicly report their trades shortly. Conflicts of interest and instances where members of Congress had financial investments that ran afoul of their policy positions were exposed by the Insider investigation. Members who hold stock in defense contractors work on committees that have jurisdiction over military policy. Others who craft anti-tobacco policy have invested in tobacco companies. Dozens of lawmakers bought or sold stock in companies that manufactured COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, tests, and personal protective equipment in the weeks before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. The issue of congressional stock trading will be the subject of a public hearing on Thursday. Senate Democrats have been discussing the issue. To mark the anniversary of the law's passage, current and former members of Congress, all of whom pushed for or voted on the original bill, told Insider how they thought the law lived up to its promises, but also how it could be improved. The STOCK Act was pushed hard by Lieberman. At a press conference months before it passed, he said the bill he sponsored was an attempt to take a step, a significant step, to rebuild the lost trust that the American people feel today in members of Congress. Lieberman, who was Al Gore's running mate for the 2000 presidential election, told Insider that he was motivated by a 60 Minutes investigation that raised serious questions about whether members of Congress were benefiting from personal stock trading. Insider has done extensive investigative work that indicates that the Stock Act is being violated too often by members of Congress, according to a statement provided by the law firm Kasowitz. He said that new legislation is needed. In order to protect the already diminished credibility of Congress and uphold the personal honor of members of Congress, I appeal to my former colleagues to fix this real and corrosive problem as soon as possible. The Alaskan Republican is known for being an unconventional member of her party. She co-sponsored Democratic-led voting rights bills, voted against her own party's Supreme Court nominees, and helped tank the effort to repeal theAffordable Care Act. She is the only incumbent Republican senator that cast a vote to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. She was one of 26 senators who voted for an amendment that would have banned lawmakers from holding individual stocks. Four other Republican senators who are no longer in office supported the measure. She reported owning between $100,000 and $250,000 in Wells Fargo and earned a Borderline rating from the Conflicted Congress project. When asked what she thought of the performance of the STOCK Act over time, she refused. As she walked to vote in the US Capitol, Murkowski said that she had not thought about the STOCK Act and whether or not it is. Gillibrand pushed for the passage of the STOCK Act a decade ago, and she said today's disclosure rules have created oversight and accountability through transparency. She told Insider that disclosure alone put a number of members of Congress into the spotlight where they could be held accountable by regulators, voters, and their own ethics committees. She said that sunlight is the best disinfectant and that it brought to light where members of Congress really are. Some members of Congress resigned, some lost their committee memberships, and I think that is real accountability. The work on the issue is not done according to Gillibrand. She reintroduced the STOCK Act 2.0 in February, which would make the disclosure database easier to use. It would require members of Congress to report when they apply for or receive a benefit from the government. She co-sponsored the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act and the Ban Conflicted Trading Act. She wants more financial regulations on the executive and judicial branches, as well as more ethics training for judges. She said that people are still creating an appearance of impropriety. Senate Democrats are considering four bills. They will decide which measure to push for this year. She said it was pretty shocking to learn how careless members of Congress were in doing their disclosure. It made her think that maybe Congress isn't serious enough and that they need to ban it. While it has been mostly Democrats who have led the charge to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, Hartzler is just as vocal about her belief that it is time for lawmakers to lose the ability to trade entirely. She told Insider at the Capitol that the STOCK Act put members of Congress on notice to not have a conflict of interest. Insider reported that 59 members of Congress and nearly 200 senior congressional staffers have violated the law since it was passed. The House version of the stock trading ban was introduced by Hartzler. The Missouri congresswoman, who is running to replace retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, received the endorsement of her opponent in the Senate race in February. I thought the STOCK ACt would be a good safeguard, but I didn't think there was a large problem with people using their information for personal gain. Nancy Pelosi's husband has frequently made eyebrow-raising trades. Nancy Pelosi is overseeing a lot of legislation that would rein in Big Tech. The congressman had a stock trade ban. The congressman failed to report his trades on time in the last two years. He said the push for a ban from his colleagues was part of aulist move in Congress. I think we have enough rules and regulations, he said. He told Insider that Congress should push for transparency. He said in a statement that if your eggs are fresh, then open them. I am for Congress to develop more mechanisms that will instill confidence in the minds of Americans. He told Insider that he thought voters were more concerned with economic issues like inflation, supply chain problems, gas prices, crime, and immigration during the mid-terms. He said that the Democratic Party and President Biden deserve all the credit for the chaos and crisis they have seen. Polling shows voters favor a stock trade ban, and many campaigns are using the issue during the election season. There is a clear example of a member of Congress being held accountable for violating insider trading law even if the law wasn't the STOCK Act. It was clear from his context that he was talking about Rep. Chris Collins, a Republican of New York, who was convicted of insider trading related to his illegal activity as a corporate board director. In that instance, obviously, we have accountability. Collins was pardoned by former President Donald Trump. He didn't have enough information to make a decision on how the STOCK Act might become stronger. The Committee on House Administration was holding a hearing about the issue. Nancy Pelosi asked the chair of the committee to look into how well members were complying with the disclosure provisions in the STOCK Act. Peter Whippy, the spokeswoman for the committee, told Insider that the April 7 hearing was part of the review. There is a lot of interest in this and I expect them to make recommendations soon. The committee is looking at the question of whether or not ownership of stocks should preclude it. We are working on it. In a phone interview, Baird said thatSTOCK was his baby. Even though he left Congress in 2011, he followed its progress. The Democrats have the Senate because of the STOCK Act, he said. In 2020, the Senate in Georgia will be controlled by the party that wins the Senate runoffs. The Democratic senators won their seats after skewering their Republican opponents. Kelly and David have personal stock portfolios. Financial disclosures show that Perdue and Loeffler dumped millions of dollars in stock after receiving private briefings about the coronaviruses. None of those traders would have come to light if it weren't for the reporting requirement in the STOCK Act. The Department of Justice didn't charge him with wrongdoing after he dumped his stocks, even though he stepped down from his perch at the top of the Intelligence Committee. The removal of the Intelligence Committee chair and the defeat of two US senators have been caused by ethics measures. That resulted in the control of the US senate. The STOCK Act was weakened in order to make it harder to find the information, and that is still angering Baird. He said it was time for the law to be strengthened. He said that some people should face jail time if they pass the reporting deadline, and that congressional stock trading should be banned until six months after politicians leave office. The people who have tried to defend this on policy grounds have been tone deafness to the politics of this. The people who oppose the movement to ban congressional stock trading have mostly stayed silent. But not Bob. He told Insider at the Capitol that banning stock trading causes lots of problems. He argued that banning the practice would discourage people from running for office. Setting up qualified blind trusts, a financial vehicle Congress considers the best way for lawmakers to avoid conflicts of interest, can be an expensive process. He said that he would have to resign because he couldn't afford a blind trust. The current disclosure window for members of Congress is 30 to 45 days, depending on the trade, but the transparency act would require them to reveal their trades within 24 hours. There are 4 Republican cosponsors of the bill. If you buy $20,000 worth of stock, your penalty is $20,000. I do it all the time. He believes that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that rank and file members don't really have access to privileged information. He said that he could not think of an example where he had insider information. Insider caught up with Brown at the Capitol just as he was leaving a meeting with Schumer and several other Senate Democrats on hammering out a common proposal on banning stock trades. Brown indicated that he wasn't impressed with the STOCK Act. He put forward an amendment to ban lawmakers from stock trading. He said that the existing STOCK Act was a little more disclosure. Brown said it wasn't very impressive after it diffused some public anger. The New York Times reported in 2020 that Perdue made over 3000 individual stock trades during his first term in office, including nearly 20 in a single day. Ossoff is leading the movement to ban stock trading for lawmakers. Brown was reticent when asked how talks on banning stock trading were going. He said he didn't have much to say about it. Brown said that Democratic senators were getting closer to a common proposal. "That is why you have talks, right?" he asked. The Ban Conflicted Trading Act is one of the most co-sponsored bills to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. During a phone interview, Merkley praised Gillibrand for helping to clarify that members of Congress are subject to insider trading prohibitions and for creating the reporting requirements that have allowed the public to scrutinize trades. He noted the amendment from a decade ago that banned lawmakers from holding individual stocks. The amendment was put forward by Sen. Sherrod Brown and Sen. Merkley to say that insider trading is hard to prove. The amendment was defeated by the Senate with 26 in favor and 73 against. The bill has been reintroduced through the last three legislative cycles and it gets more attention when there is a scandal. He gave more information about the progress of the talks between several Democratic senators and the aim of finding a common stock trading ban proposal that doesn't clash with the different stock trading ban proposals that have come forward. We can all sign on to the bill and get it on the floor. He said that members are still discussing the timing of the implementation of a ban, as well as whether that ban should apply to lawmakers' spouses. Keep reading.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
