US Senators Moody & Gillibrand Introduce Legislation to Ban Congressional Stock Trading

U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Ashley Moody (R-FL) have introduced the bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act. The bill would ban stock ownership and trading for members of Congress and their immediate family members. Senator Gillibrand says the introduced bill is companion legislation to the bipartisan bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Chip Roy (R-TX-21) and Seth Magaziner (D-RI-02) in the House of Representatives. The bill in the House currently has 126 cosponsors.

Senator Gillibrand says to date, 79 representatives, both Republican and Democrat, have signed a discharge petition filed by Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL-13) to bring the bill to a house vote.

“It is fundamental to our Republic that members of Congress are focused on our nation and its citizens’ well-being, not how they may financially profit from their positions,” said the senators. “That is why we are proud to introduce this commonsense bill to ban members of Congress from owning or trading individual stocks. We will continue to fight tirelessly to make sure it becomes law.”

Gillibrand led legislation back in 2012, the STOCK Act, which bars members of Congress from using insider information to buy and sell stocks. According to Gillibrand, despite the legislation, one in three members of Congress traded stocks or other financial assets from 2019-2021, and at least 3,700 of those trades posed potential conflicts of interest with their legislative responsibilities. The Restore Trust in Congress Act would eliminate the conflicts of interest by banning stock holding and trading entirely.

Under the proposed bill. Members of Congress, their spouses, dependent children, and their trustees, would be banned from owning, buying, and selling individual stocks and certain other financial assets. Those include securities, commodities, and futures. If passed and signed into law, members of Congress and their families would have 180 days to divest their assets. New members of Congress would have 90 days to divest.

Violators would be imposed a fine equal to 10% of the value of the asset and require any profits from the transaction to be disgorged to the U.S. Treasury.