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Much attention has been paid in recent years, and rightfully so, to the issue of stock trading by members of Congress. The fact that federal lawmakers and their families can buy and sell stocks that overlap with their official work is a clear conflict of interest, and one that decreases trust in an institution that already struggles with dismal public approval ratings.
Yes, there are some guardrails in place now. But those are woefully inadequate. The simplest and strongest solution is to ban Congressional stock trading entirely, including from officials’ close family members. The same goes for presidents and vice presidents in terms of addressing potential conflicts of interest.
There has been no shortage of proposals to strengthen ethics laws like this. But unfortunately the discussion around these proposals, despite sky-high public support for them, has not turned into action. The pile of well-intentioned ideas got a little bigger this week, with a bipartisan group of four senators introducing the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act to prohibit stock trading from members of Congress and their immediate family members.
The broad strokes of this proposal from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon; Josh Hawley, R-Missouri; Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia; and Gary Peters, D-Michigan, are solid. The bill would include strong fines as an enforcement mechanism, for example. But plenty of similar proposals have been offered in the last couple of years; the most promising element of this one is that it actually has a clearer path forward for consideration.
Peters, who chairs the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, has said that the proposal will come before his committee in late July. Other recent stock ban proposals have not received this kind of committee consideration, according to NPR.
“The public should be confident that federal elected officials are making decisions that are in the best interests of the American people, not their own personal finances,” Peters said in a recent press release. About 85 percent of Americans would agree with that, based on recent polling on the stock trading issue.
“Congress should not be here to make a buck, Congress should be here to serve the people,” Hawley said in the same press release, also calling the bill a “giant step forward and I’m proud of the fact that it’s going to be voted on in Senator Peters’ committee.”
The Senate should not be alone in advancing stock ban legislation. The House of Representatives already has numerous proposals before it that could and should be acted upon. As a bipartisan group of 20 House members, led by Maine 2nd District Democratic Rep. Jared Golden and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, stressed to leadership in a July 9 letter, it is time for this effort to receive a vote.
“It’s been nearly two years since House leadership committed to holding a vote on a bill to reform stock trading practices for Members of Congress,” the group wrote. “In a hyper-partisan political environment where American approval ratings of Congress are at an all-time low, this is a common-sense and bipartisan change, making it crystal clear that we come to Washington to serve our constituents, not to serve our own financial interests.”
There is no shortage of proposals to ban congressional stock trading, just as there is no shortage of public support to do so. The issue thus far has been political will in Congress. It is past time for lawmakers to catch up to public sentiment, to listen to their colleagues already calling for reform, and to take this step toward a more ethical government better centered in public service rather than personal gain.
