The vast majority of voters do not want members of Congress to trade stocks. Plenty of members of Congress say they don’t think they and their colleagues should be playing the stock market either.
And so a piece of bipartisan legislation has just landed that would accomplish just that. How this bill will fare, like multiple others before it, is unclear.
On Wednesday, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act, which would overhaul how members of Congress, the president, the vice president, senior executive branch officials, and their spouses and dependents would be able to invest.
It would bar them from holding and trading individual stocks. It also makes no exception for blind trusts, meaning they can’t put their investments in a little black box controlled by someone else who can make trades on their behalf, just without their knowledge. They would still be able to own mutual funds and index funds.
If they break the rules, they would be penalized at least 10 percent of the value of the prohibited investments.
“Politicians and civil servants shouldn’t spend their time day-trading and trying to make a profit at the expense of the American public, but that’s exactly what so many are doing,” Sen. Hawley said in a statement announcing the bill. Sen. Gillibrand said “it is critical that the American people know that their elected leaders are putting the public first — not looking for ways to line their own pockets.”
The proposed legislation would also require Congress members, senior congressional staff, the president, the vice president, and senior executive branch employees to report any time they or their family members apply for or get a loan, contract, grant, or some other benefit of value from the federal government. And it would create a public, searchable database of personal financial disclosure reports and filings required by the STOCK Act, a 2012 law…
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