https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/10/senators-strike-bipartisan-deal-for-a-ban-on-stock-trading-by-members-of-congress.htmlA bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday launched a renewed effort to ban members of Congress from trading stock.
“Congress should not be here to make a buck,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said at a press conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “There is no reason why members of Congress ought to be profiting off of the information that only they get.”
The proposal is the latest chapter in a yearslong saga in Congress to pass regulations that limit lawmakers’ ability to buy and sell stocks, and the first one to get formal consideration by a Senate committee — in this case the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee on July 24.
Ethics experts say that legislators’ access to the kind of information they receive gives them the potential of having an unfair advantage to the investing public.
Wednesday’s amendment to an existing stock trading ban bill would immediately forbid members of Congress, the president and the vice president from purchasing stocks and other covered investments. It would also give lawmakers 90 days to sell their stocks.
Sens. Hawley, Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., negotiated and announced the new details.
If passed, the bill would also prohibit lawmakers’ spouses and dependent children from trading stocks, beginning March 2027. Also starting that year, the U.S. president, vice president and all members of Congress would have to divest from any covered investments.
