The Committee on House Administration will hold a hearing next Wednesday on banning congressional stock trading, which could lead to reforming the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.
The hearing, called “Taking Stock of the STOCK Act” and led by House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), will determine policy options to take into consideration in reforming stock trading law.
Dan Savicka, vice president of policy and government affairs at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Manhattan Institute senior fellow James R. Copeland, will testify at the hearing.
“Members of Congress should never profit off insider information,” Steil told Fox News on Thursday. “A number of proposals have been put forward to strengthen the STOCK Act. Our hearing will review the current law and evaluate the reforms needed to fix the system.”
The STOCK Act prohibits the use of nonpublic information for private profit by congressional members and federal employees.
Passed under former President Obama in 2012, the law requires that members of Congress and federal workers “shall not receive any compensation, nor shall he permit any compensation to accrue to his beneficial interest from any source,” according to the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics.
However, lawmakers have worked to ban congressional stock trading outright. In September, bipartisan group of House lawmakers revealed the Restore Trust in Congress Act to outright ban members of Congress, their spouses and any dependent children from stock trading.
If the drafted legislation becomes law, lawmakers found to have violated the proposal would face financial penalties equal to 10 percent of the value of their investment and would be forced to relinquish any earnings from the violation.
Those lawmakers would then have 180 days from the bill’s enactment to divest their holdings or place them in a blind trust. New members would have 90 days.
“Look, this is a message to our colleagues: You may have traded up till now, and you may have operated within the confines of the law and the rules and the regulations,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) previously said. “We’re not going to judge what you did before now, but now that this bill is going to come to the floor — and we’re going to make sure of that — it’s your chance to get right with the American people because at the end of the day, Congress is not a casino.”
Legislation to ban congressional stock trading has received support from both sides of the aisle, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) being among the prominent backers.
Pelosi backed the Honest Act, introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), another legislative attempt to ban congressional stock trading. It was previously called the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments, or PELOSI, Act.
Hawley changed the name in order to gain Democratic support. He scrutinized Pelosi after her husband sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia stock at an average price of $165.05 with a total loss of $341,365, according to a period transactional report.
In April, President Trump said he would “absolutely” sign a congressional stock trading ban, and later added that he would “take a look” at the bill, adding.
