There is a growing movement to ban stock trading by members of Congress, but it is altogether unclear whether the two parties will be able to overcome differences to pass such reforms anytime soon.
A bipartisan group of House members—including some of the chamber’s most conservative and most liberal members—is pushing the Restore Trust in Congress Act, which they say would close loopholes and put an end to the owning and trading of individual stocks by lawmakers. The bill does allow for members to invest in mutual funds.
“If you want to day-trade, leave Congress,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, one of the bill’s main backers, arguing that the practice leads to corruption and conflicts of interest.
A Compromise to Get it Done
The members of this bipartisan group, which includes liberal Democrat members, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Pramila Jayapal of California, claim that they will get a vote no matter what.
“We’re going to get a vote on it. This is a nondebatable proposition,” said Roy, who has long pushed for a ban on members trading stocks, having introduced the Trust in Congress Act with former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., in 2020.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., building on this point, said that if the House leadership does not put the bill on the floor, “there is a discharge petition prepared and ready to go,” referring to a legislative tool used to bypass the leadership and force consideration of a bill.
But it remains to be seen whether enough Democrats and Republicans would be on board to reach the 218 votes necessary to force a vote.
One potential sticking point is the fact that the bill does not apply to the president and vice president, which could complicate its prospects among Democrats.
In the Senate, the two parties have yet to advance the HONESTY Act for a floor vote, which prohibits stock trading both for members of Congress and—at Democrats’ insistence—for the president and vice president.
President Donald Trump, who had plenty of experience in his first term with being investigated by his opponents, has argued the bill would target him unfairly. In the House, the same debate could play out, complicating the efforts to pass the bill.
“To be clear, we are not saying that the president and the vice president aren’t going to be included in the end product,” Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., a sponsor of the Trust in Congress Act, said Tuesday.
“What we’re saying is, we’re starting the process now; hopefully, through regular order, through committees, and if we can get the critical mass of support to include the president and vice president, we will put an amendment, and we will do that,” added Magaziner, adding:
One of our operating principles was not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Like, let’s get the strongest reform that we possibly can get passed with a realistic shot of getting done this Congress.
Would Jeffries Sign On?
But a potential discharge petition, let alone passage through the House, might require the cooperation of Democrat House leadership. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was not entirely clear whether he could accept a bill that applies to members of Congress alone.
Asked by The Daily Signal if he would support such a bill, Jeffries said, “We have to clean up corruption in Washington, D.C.—that’s in Congress, that’s in the Supreme Court, and that’s with the administration. In terms of the congressional stock ban, it is clearly something that has to happen, and Democrats have been leading on this effort.”
But Jeffries, who often holds his cards close to his chest, would not commit on whether he would accept a Congress-only stock ban.
“In terms of the individual bills, we’ll have to have a caucus conversation about what is the best approach and what is achievable,” he said.
