Left and right are joining forces to ban lawmakers from trading stock

WASHINGTON (AP) — An unusual alliance emerged in the House on Wednesday as lawmakers who agree on little else rallied support for a bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their families from owning and trading individual stocks.

The group included darlings of the far right, the left, moderates and many in between. They gathered to promote a ban that polls well with voters and appears to be finding new momentum after stalling out in previous sessions of Congress.

“It’s not every day you see this cast of characters up here,” said Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican who represents a perennial swing district in Pennsylvania. “You’re all smirking out there. That’s a good thing. It speaks to the power of this cause.”

Congress has discussed proposals for years to keep lawmakers from engaging in trading individual stocks, nodding to the idea that there’s a potential conflict of interest when they are often privy to information and decisions that can dramatically move markets.

A Senate committee has approved legislation from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri that would also extend the prohibition on stock trading to future presidents and vice presidents — while notably exempting Republican President Donald Trump. The House bill unveiled this week is limited to Congress, but the sponsors said they were open to extending it to the executive branch if enough support emerged.

Under current law, federal lawmakers are required to disclose their stock sales and purchases. The bill requiring disclosure, The Stock Act, was signed into law in 2012. At the time, lawmakers and government watchdogs predicted that public disclosure would shame lawmakers out of actively buying and selling stock. That hasn’t happened.

The sponsors said they merged their own, individual bills on banning stocks and came together with a single bipartisan effort. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, the bill’s lead sponsor, said that the group had been meeting for the last several months, and some sponsors had actually been working on this for years. About a dozen lawmakers from both parties joined Roy on stage. It was an unusually festive moment as the partisan lines in Congress have rarely been sharper.

“I don’t agree with some of these people on anything,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican often aligned with the the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. followed Burchett to the podium and fist-bumped him when doing so. She said she felt like the coalition showed how Congress should actually work. “It feels foreign and it feels alien and it’s like, what’s going on here?” she said.

While the legislation would not allow lawmakers to own individual stocks and bonds, they would be allowed to own diversified mutual funds and ETFs and certain commodities. Lawmakers who currently own individual stocks and bonds would have 180 days to divest. New members would have 90 days to divest upon taking office.

The mood was celebratory at Wednesday’s unveiling, but even if the bill were to pass the House, it would face a more difficult climb in the Senate. At least 60 votes would be needed to advance the legislation in that chamber and some senators have expressed concerns about the concept.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., acknowledged that members opposed to banning stocks are “persistent.”

“Those of us who support banning stock trading in Congress are very vocal in our position, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t opponents,” Magaziner said.

Some members expressed urgency in moving the bill through the House. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla. said they have “asked nicely for leadership to put this on the floor” and set a deadline for the end of month before she would seek to force a vote.

A version of the trading ban that advanced out of one Senate panel was described by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin as “legislative demagoguery.”

“We do have insider trading laws. We have financial disclosure. Trust me, we have financial disclosure,” Johnson said. “So I don’t see the necessity of this.”