Two top members of the House Democratic Caucus took a shot at Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy floating a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks, a proposal that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dismissed.
“We aren’t going to do is be lectured on this issue by someone coddled the twice-impeached president and has his own ethical — ethical issues, and the president has his own ethical issues related to disclosures,” Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat, said in a press conference on Wednesday. “But we’re going to be open to legislative solutions.”
Former President Donald Trump, whom Aguilar referenced, famously declined to disclose his tax returns, among other matters.
“They consistently, consistently, bent the knee and supported the most corrupt president in American history, across the board,” New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said of Republicans, adding that they want to “lecture the Congress about how to proceed when there’s a process in place.”
STOCK TRADING BAN PROPOSALS PRESSURE PELOSI, BUT NOT ALL HOUSE REPUBLICANS ON BOARD
“Brilliant members are putting forth different pieces of legislation. And we’re going to handle this in a thoughtful, evidence-based fashion,” Jeffries said.
Punchbowl News reported last week that McCarthy is considering ways to limit or ban members trading individual stocks or prevent them from trading stocks in industries subject to oversight from committees they sit on.
McCarthy is just one of a wave of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to become interested in restricting members’ ability to buy and trade securities. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff last week introduced separate bills to restrict member stock trading, adding to other similar bills that aimed to do so. Four senators were investigated in 2020 for trades they made before COVID-19-related lockdowns but were not charged. An Insider investigation last year asserted that dozens of members had recently failed to meet transparency requirements.
Pelosi faced pushback, including from members of her own party, after she brushed off the idea of banning members from trading stocks.
“We are a free market economy. They [members] should be able to participate in that,” Pelosi, whose husband’s stock trades and millions in gains have gained notice, said in a press conference.
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But last week, Pelosi directed the House Administration Committee to examine members failing to report stock trades in a timely manner as required by the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which requires members to report their stock trades within 30 to 45 days.
“To the extent that you can make changes to the STOCK Act, or increase compliance with the STOCK Act, we’re not going to hesitate to do that,” Aguilar said.
