Washington — On Wednesday, the House passed a bill that imposes certain constraints on congressional stock trading. However, its path to acceptance was not without obstacles, as the absence of more stringent measures and the addition of a voter ID proposal muddled Democratic support.
In a show of cross-party voting, the bill succeeded with a 232 to 198 tally, drawing support from 13 Democrats alongside the entire Republican delegation.
Authored by Representative Bryan Steil from Wisconsin and first introduced in January, the Stop Insider Trading Act aims to curb potential financial conflicts of interest by forbidding members of Congress, as well as their spouses and dependent children, from purchasing publicly traded stocks. Adding a layer of transparency, the legislation mandates that lawmakers announce their intention to sell stocks at least a week in advance by notifying the House clerk or the Senate secretary. Failing to comply with these rules would result in a penalty, which includes a fine of $2,000 or 10% of the transaction’s value, whichever is larger, and the surrender of any gains garnered from the sale.
Representative Steil emphasized on Monday that the proposal “ensures that lawmakers cannot use their position to profit off insider information they may garner while serving in Congress.”
The Republicans tied the stock trading legislation to a separate clause mandating photo identification for voters in federal elections, aligning with President Trump’s efforts to enforce stricter voter eligibility requirements.
Democrats panned the bill as not going far enough, pushing for an outright ban on members of Congress from owning stocks and for those limits to also extend to the president and administration officials.
“This bill would, in fact, allow members of Congress to continue to own and trade individual stocks. The bill would let members of Congress keep every single share of stock they currently own. The bill would allow members to liquidate their holdings at any time, profiting off years of ballooning investment portfolios. There is no divestiture required under this bill, and crucially, the bill does nothing to rein in the unprecedented, absurd, and deeply offensive corruption currently taking place in the White House,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York said Monday.
Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington called the measure “a fake stock trading ban.”
There have been various efforts in Congress to pass a congressional stock trading ban, with proponents saying current law does little to discourage public officials from using their positions for personal gain. Under a 13-year-old law known as the STOCK Act, members of Congress, executive branch officials and other federal employees are prohibited from using nonpublic information for their financial benefit. The law also requires officials to disclose stock trades exceeding $1,000 within 45 days. But no member of Congress has ever been prosecuted under the current law, despite violations.
Late last year, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida followed through on a monthslong threat to try to force a vote on the bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act, which would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from owning or trading individual stocks. But her discharge petition to circumvent GOP leaders and bring the bill to the House floor is still far short of the 218 signatures needed to move forward.
A discharge petition led by Morelle on a Democratic measure of a similar name, the Restore Trust in Government Act, is much closer to the threshold, but still dozens of names short. The measure would ban members of Congress, the president, vice president and their families from owning or trading individual stocks.
After Luna filed her discharge petition, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was working with Steil, the chairman of the House Administration Committee, to find other paths to address the issue. Steil’s bill was born of that effort.
Last year, a bill spearheaded by GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri to ban lawmakers, the president, vice president and their families from owning stocks advanced out of committee, but has since sat idle in the upper chamber.
GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, the lead sponsor of the Restore Trust in Congress Act, called for Steil’s stock trading bill to get a vote without the voter ID provision in recognition of the bipartisan negotiations that led to Wednesday’s vote.
“I think we should be having a straight up-or-down vote on the stock trading bill,” Roy said during floor debate Wednesday. “I think my friends that worked in good faith to do that deserve that on both sides of the aisle.”
“I’m not done this year demanding that we have a straight up-or-down vote on stock trading,” he added.