“We are a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. Her family holds tens of millions of dollars worth of stocks and options. Win McNamee/Getty Images
GovExec Daily: Feds Have to Follow Stronger Ethics Rules Than Members of Congress. Why?
The Project on Government Oversight's Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette and National Taxpayers Union's Andrew Lautz join the podcast to discuss members of Congress trading individual stocks and ethics.
After a private briefing for Senators in January 2020 about the coronavirus crisis, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr sold between $500,000 and $1.5 million in stock shortly before markets tanked. Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler also sold millions in stock between the briefing and the market drop.
Some public outrage surrounded the news about the Senators capitalizing on insider information, but the news cycle moved on. A few months ago in December, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper disclosed that he had sold approximately four million dollars worth of stock, conveniently in advance of federal interest hikes. The news was mostly buried.
Good government advocacy groups have been raising the volume recently on the call for legislation to prevent members of Congress trading individual stocks. More than a dozen groups signed onto a letter by the Project on Government Oversight sent to Senate leaders calling for Congressional action on insider trading that would be stronger than the 2012 STOCK Act.
Andrew Lautz is a Policy and Government Affairs Manager for the National Taxpayers Union and Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette is a Government Affairs Manager at the Project on Government Oversight. They joined the podcast to discuss the push to ban members of Congress fro trading individual stocks.
