{"id":11827,"date":"2025-07-30T16:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T16:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/congressional-stock-trading-ban-gets-senate-panels-ok\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T16:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T16:32:08","slug":"congressional-stock-trading-ban-gets-senate-panels-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/congressional-stock-trading-ban-gets-senate-panels-ok\/","title":{"rendered":"Congressional stock trading ban gets Senate panel\u2019s OK"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Senate committee voted to advance a bill that would ban stock trading by lawmakers, presidents and vice presidents \u2014 over objections from most Republicans and with a carve-out for President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the original bill barring members of Congress and their spouses from trading stocks. It was named, to Democrats\u2019 dismay, for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under scrutiny for extensive trading without evidence that she ever did so using insider information from Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 but only for future administrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Hawley said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) called the effort a \u201cpublicity show\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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\u2019re voting for, is gross incompetence,\u201d Moreno said. \u201cThis is the most absurd process I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> she intends to force a floor vote on a member trading ban when the House returns in September.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The panel probed whether Victoria Kelly\u2019s purchase of the holdings was the result of nonpublic information from her husband\u2019s official duties, but the investigation did not yield conclusive evidence that she purchased stock based on her husband\u2019s insider knowledge as a lawmaker.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know when in this country it became a negative to make money,\u201d Scott said, describing his own rags-to-riches story. He asked the attendees in the hearing room, \u201cHow many of you don\u2019t want to make money? Anybody want to be poor?\u201d<\/p>\n

In an apparent attempt to sink the bill among Democrats, Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) argued the legislation should apply to Trump \u2014 not just future presidents \u2014 and suggested his Democratic colleagues would be voting to protect the incumbent if they supported the revised bill. Paul later called it the \u201cexemption for Donald Trump substitute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats ultimately voted to alter the bill to exempt Trump, an apparent concession to appease Hawley and secure its passage.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cwilling to make the good work instead of waiting for the perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all saw Vance and Trump come out against this publicly, but I think it’s important that we at least make a start,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Senate committee voted to advance a bill that would ban stock trading by lawmakers, presidents and vice presidents \u2014 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}