A Senate committee voted to advance a bill that would ban stock trading by lawmakers, presidents and vice presidents — over objections from most Republicans and with a carve-out for President Donald Trump.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the original bill barring members of Congress and their spouses from trading stocks. It was named, to Democrats’ dismay, for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under scrutiny for her husband’s extensive trading without evidence that any of it was done using insider information from Capitol Hill.
In conjunction with Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Hawley offered an alternative to the panel that would ditch the contentious name and expand the prohibitions to the president and vice president — but only for future administrations.
“We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted us to do for decades, and that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that, frankly, only members of Congress have,” Hawley said.
The committee voted 8-7 with all Republicans on the panel save Hawley voting against proceeding with the bill. The GOP detractors argued it would unfairly punish the wealthy and disincentivize some from serving in Congress. Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, one of the Republican nays, is chair of the Senate Ethics Committee and noted he would be responsible for enforcing the bill should it become law.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) called the effort a “publicity show” and said the committee was moving too hastily to approve the altered legislation. Moreno noted he had co-sponsored the original PELOSI Act with Hawley.
“It is important for us to restore faith in our institutions, but to just put a vote out there, when we have literally no idea what we’re voting for, is gross incompetence,” Moreno said. “This is the most absurd process I’ve ever seen.”
Lawmakers have kept calls to ban member stock trading at bay for years. But pressure is increasingly mounting on congressional leaders to move on the issue. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), for instance, told POLITICO Tuesday she intends to force a floor vote on a member trading ban when the House returns in September.
The debate over the bills also comes less than a week after the House Ethics Committee released a report that called for Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and his wife, Victoria Kelly, to divest from a steel manufacturer, citing the appearance of impropriety.
The panel probed whether Victoria Kelly’s purchase of the holdings was the result of nonpublic information from her husband’s official duties, but the investigation did not yield conclusive evidence that she purchased stock based on her husband’s insider knowledge as a lawmaker.
Several Republicans argued the legislation before the panel was flawed. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he did not see the need for new legislation given the existing rules around insider trading, and he warned it would have unintended consequences. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), meanwhile, accused Hawley of reneging on a promise to work with him to improve the bill.
“I don’t know when in this country it became a negative to make money,” Scott said, describing his own rags-to-riches story. He asked the attendees in the hearing room, “How many of you don’t want to make money? Anybody want to be poor?”
In an apparent attempt to sink the bill among Democrats, Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) argued the legislation should apply to Trump — not just future presidents — and suggested his Democratic colleagues would be voting to protect the incumbent if they supported the revised bill. Paul later called it the “exemption for Donald Trump substitute.”
Democrats ultimately voted to alter the bill to exempt Trump, an apparent concession to appease Hawley and secure its passage.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said she would have preferred not to have the exception for Trump and Vice President JD Vance but added she was “willing to make the good work instead of waiting for the perfect.”
“We all saw Vance and Trump come out against this publicly, but I think it’s important that we at least make a start,” she said.
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