In a mic-drop moment in the debate around insider trading in Congress, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has introduced anti-PELOSI bills – targeting the former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
The GOP senator announced the Bill Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments –the PELOSI Act on Jan. 24 – after news broke that Pelosi’s venture capitalist husband sold 30,000 shares of Google stock just one month before the tech giant was sued over alleged antitrust violations.
Pelosi also received harsh criticism when her husband sold up to $5 million worth of shares in Nvidia, a computer chipmaker, just days before Congress approved a mega stimulus package to boost the semiconductor industry.
“Members of Congress and their spouses shouldn’t be using their position to get rich on the stock market,” Hawley tweeted. “Today, I’m introducing legislation to BAN stock trading & ownership by members of Congress. I call it the PELOSI Act.” he added.
Reps. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Chip Roy of Texas, joined by a bipartisan alliance of 35 cosponsors, also reintroduced another bill – the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust in Congress Act, or TRUST, for the third time.
“We saw tremendous momentum, we saw growing support in our districts, and we saw growing recognition across the political spectrum that such a reform needs to be made now,” Spanberger said in a statement.
“Our TRUST in Congress Act would demonstrate that lawmakers are focused on serving the interests of the American people — not their own stock portfolios.” Spanberger added.
If passed, both PELOSI and TRUST would ban members of Congress, their spouses and children from trading individual stocks and force them to place their investment assets into blind trusts.
Both pieces of legislation aim to address the advantage that politicians have as well-connected people with the inside track on new legislation that might affect a company or an industry.
“While Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other, hard-working Americans pay the price,” Hawley said in his PELOSI Act announcement. “The solution is clear: we must immediately and permanently ban all members of Congress from trading stocks.”
While insider insights don’t make them clairvoyant, it’s certainly an advantage when it comes to trading in the stock market.
With more cosponsors than ever before, Spanberger and Roy’s TRUST currently stands the best chance of passing and rebuilding trust with the American public.
“We need to do something to stop that breach of trust that is apparent to the American people that we seem to be day trading while we’re supposed to be doing the work of the American people,” Roy said in an interview with Fox.