Lawmakers who own stocks may not have to sell them off after all.
House GOP leadership is backing a new bill to ban stock trading by members of Congress, and it could come to a vote in the coming weeks.
The bill, set to be introduced on Monday by Republican Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, would prevent members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from buying new stocks and require them to give at least seven days’ notice for any sale.
“The American people deserve to know that their members of Congress is not profiting off of insider information,” Steil said in a video announcing the bill. “If you want to day trade, go to Wall Street.”
The bill would also allow lawmakers to hold onto their existing stock holdings.
That aligns with what House Speaker Mike Johnson said last month, when he suggested that forcing people to sell their stocks could deter financially successful individuals from serving in Congress.
“You don’t want another deterrence for good people running for office,” Johnson told Punchbowl News at the time.
As with other proposals, the new bill would still allow lawmakers to trade in diversified funds, such as mutual funds and ETFs. The penalty for violating the new law would be $2,000 or 10% of the value of the transaction, whichever is higher.
While the bill would address concerns that lawmakers are trading on non-public information, allowing members of Congress to continue holding stocks may not fully quiet public concerns about conflicts of interest, or that lawmakers are voting in alignment with their financial holdings.
“No member of Congress should be allowed to profit from insider information, and this legislation represents an important step in our efforts to restore the people’s faith and trust in Congress,” Johnson said in a statement.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement that he’d “like to move this bill for a full House vote” once it’s voted out of the House Administration Committee, which is chaired by Steil.
A committee markup on the bill has been set for Wednesday morning.
The new GOP-backed bill comes on the heels of an effort by Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida to force a vote on a separate bipartisan stock trading ban. That bill, like most other proposals, would force members of Congress to fully divest their individual stock holdings.
Some top Democrats have balked at that proposal, since it does not include restrictions on stock trading by the president and vice president.
It’s unclear whether the new GOP-backed proposal will attract any Democratic support.
A trio of Democrats who’d backed a bipartisan stock trading ban bill — Reps. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — issued a statement on Monday saying the new bill “falls far short of what the American people want and deserve.”
“While this bill prohibits Member from buying new stocks, it does nothing to remove the conflict of interest that arises from owning or selling existing stocks,” the trio said.
Separately, a group of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate passed a stock trading ban bill out of committee in July that does include the president and vice president. It has yet to receive a floor vote.
Here’s the text of the bill:
