Congress: Stock-trading ban gathering steam
As the midterms loom and public pressure mounts, “there’s finally momentum to stop stock trading in Congress,” said Ellen Ioanes in Vox. Government watchdogs have long argued that “lawmakers should be barred from trading individual stocks,” saying the potential for profiting off insider knowledge or legislative action presents ethical problems. The heat was turned up after several senators, including Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and then–Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), were briefed on the coming pandemic in February 2020, then earned millions from “suspiciously well-timed trades.” Public anger has “spurred new energy” around the issue, and a number of proposed bills are drawing bipartisan support— including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who opposed restrictions until last week. It’s high time, said Bloomberg in an editorial. The 2012 Stock Act, designed to prevent lawmakers from profiting off insider information, has proved toothless, and in the last year alone, 55 House and Senate members have failed to comply with its reporting requirements. The public needs to see evidence “their elected officials are more interested in doing good than doing well.”
The “misguided rush” toward a trading ban amounts to “populist grandstanding,” said The
Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The Stock Act already bars lawmakers from trades “based on nonpublic information,” and requires disclosure of transactions over $1,000. Meanwhile, trading limits could deter “good businessmen and -women and those who aren’t political lifers from seeking office.” If officeholders make unethical trades, “voters are free to fire” them at the next election.
Although lawmakers are now jumping on the bandwagon of a trading ban, said Mike Lillis and Cristina Marcos in The Hill, actual passage of a bill “faces steep hurdles.” There are many “competing proposals,” and it won’t be easy to find consensus. One bill calls for lawmakers to put their assets into blind trusts, while another calls for a blanket ban on owning individual stocks. Would a ban apply to spouses and other family members? To aides? To federal judges, as Pelosi has suggested? Advocates fear the effort could “die within a circular firing squad of those who agree on the concept but not the specifics.” Still, the looming 2022 midterms are giving lawmakers motivation, said Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post. There’s nothing like facing an angry electorate amid “atrocious polling numbers for both parties to turn even the most cynical lawmakers into starry-eyed advocates of good government.”