Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is making another attempt to reform stock ownership in the government with the introduction of a bill that would ban members of the executive branch from trading stocks
.
The bill, expected to be introduced Monday, follows legislation Hawley sponsored in February that would prohibit members of Congress, their immediate family, and senior staff from trading stocks
. Attempts to crack down on stock trading that seemingly made numerous government officials rich stalled out in the last Congress when House Democratic leadership didn’t bring them up for votes.
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“Senior members of the executive branch—who have access to privileged information—shouldn’t be using it to get rich,” Hawley told the Wall Street Journal. “While prohibitions already exist in federal law to prevent conflicts of interest, these laws are difficult to enforce and frankly, insufficient.”
The proposed limits on the executive officials would ensure that they and their spouses would divest from their stock market holdings or place them into a blind trust within six months of beginning their jobs. Diversified mutual funds are excluded from the ban. Hawley’s office did not respond to Washington Examiner’s request for further comment.
The legislation is nearly identical to the bill banning lawmakers from stock trading Hawley reintroduced in January. Named the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments, or PELOSI, Act, it would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from holding or trading individual stocks and gives elected officials six months to divest after assuming office. The name knocks former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), whose husband, Paul Pelosi’s stock trades made the couple millions.
Hawley’s original effort stalled out during the last session when it never got a vote. A House bill under the same name, also introduced in January 2022, also never received a vote.
A bipartisan group of representatives resurrected the House version in January. Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) have partnered on the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust in Congress, or TRUST, Act, in three consecutive sessions of Congress, but it has never been brought to the floor for a vote. This iteration currently has 52 co-sponsors from a wide range of political alignments — 10 Republicans and 42 Democrats — from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).
December 2021 reports revealed that Pelosi’s husband made millions from trading the stocks of companies she helps regulate, which reignited the debate over the ethics of congressional stock trading. Spanberger called out the then-speaker for not bringing her bill to the floor and engaging in “repeated delay tactics, hand-waving gestures, and blatant instances of Lucy pulling the football.”
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Many of the House Democrats who signed on to Spanberger’s 2023 attempt sent a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in early February, asking him to allow a vote on the bill.
“In July 2022, you promised reform, stating, ‘What I’ve told everybody, we will come back and we will not only investigate this, we will come back with a proposal to change the current behavior [stock trading].’ As you now set the House floor agenda for the 118th Congress as Speaker of the House, we respectfully request you act on your promise,” it read.
