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josh hawley
'Good for Democracy': Ex-Lawmakers Urge Senate Vote on Banning Stock Trades
More than 40 former members of Congress said the ETHICS Act is sorely needed because it "addresses pressing issues, especially low levels of trust in Congress and the appearance of insider trading."
Sep 16, 2024
A bipartisan group of more than 40 former federal lawmakers on Monday urged the U.S. Senate to vote on proposed legislation that would ban sitting members of Congress from buying or selling stocks and other financial holdings.
"We, the undersigned bipartisan former public officials, many of whom served in Congress, write to urge Senate leadership to bring the amended Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act to a floor vote before it is set to sunset at the end of the 118th Congress," the letter's signers wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Signatories include former Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) along with Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Donna Edwards (D-Md.), Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), and Leon Panetta (D-Calif.).
"Notably," the ex-lawmakers said, "we propose attaching this crucial legislation to any 'must-pass' package. This legislation merits inclusion in such a package because it addresses pressing issues, especially low levels of trust in Congress and the appearance of insider trading."
The letter continues:
As you are both aware, the discussion of how elected officials trade stocks has been intensifying both inside and outside the Congress for years. In 2022, members of Congress made more than 12,700 individual trades, with dozens of members making above-average gains. A 2022 New York Timesinvestigation reported that a fifth of all lawmakers were trading in companies directly related to their work on a congressional committee.
Critics have long decried existing legislation—including the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 and the Stop Trading Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, which require annual financial disclosures by members of Congress—as largely toothless window dressing. Advocates of measures like the ETHICS Act have pushed for more stringent safeguards against self-dealing by members of Congress.
The ETHICS Act—which was introduced in July by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—would ban members of Congress, the president, and vice president from buying and selling securities, commodities, futures, options, trusts, and other holdings. It would also prohibit their spouses and dependent children from divesting covered assets starting in 2027. The bill contains robust enforcement mechanisms and noncompliance penalties.
Calls for a vote on the ETHICS Act mounted after last week's revelation that more than 50 U.S. lawmakers held stocks in companies related to the military-industrial complex—even as those same firms received hundreds of billions of dollars in annual business via congressional legislation.
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Greg Casar Says There's an Easy Way to Show Which Party Is More Pro-Worker
"Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk," said the Texas Democrat.
Jul 16, 2024
As former U.S. President Donald Trump's new running mate and a union leader's speech spark discussions about the Republican Party and organized labor, one Democratic congressman on Tuesday suggested a test to see who is actually pro-worker.
Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat with a history of
advocating for workers, called for holding a vote on the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act when his colleagues in Congress return to Capitol Hill next week.
"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar said on social media. "Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk. Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"
Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the PRO Act "expands various labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace." The vast majority of its co-sponsors are Democrats.
"Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"
Casar specifically called out House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who on Tuesday wrote for Compact Magazine about International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien's Monday night speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC), acknowledging that it "came as something of a shock."
Hawley called the speech "a watershed moment" and said that "Republicans have a chance to turn the corner on labor." He also took the opportunity to highlight some of his own positions, such as more sick days for rail workers. The senator left out that he has backed "right-to-work" laws that ban union security clauses in collective bargaining agreements and opposed the PRO Act.
O'Brien—who responded by saying that Hawley "is 100% on point"—had, as The Washington Post's Lauren Kaori Gurley put it, "showered praise" on the senator during his speech. The Teamsters leader also stressed the need for pro-worker reforms.
"Labor law must be reformed," O'Brien said. "Americans vote for a union but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best. An individual cannot withstand such an assault. A fired worker cannot afford corporate delays and these greedy employers know it. There are no consequences for the company, only the worker."
He declared that "we need corporate welfare reform. Under our current system, massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Walmart take zero responsibilities for the workers they employ. These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations, and this is real corruption. We must put workers first."
O'Brien was invited to speak at the RNC by Trump, who on Monday secured enough delegates to become the Republican nominee and announced U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate—creating a ticket that Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, called "a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."
Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz told the Post that the union leader requested to speak at the Democratic National Convention next month but has not yet received an invitation.
Unlike the Teamsters, several major labor groups endorsed Biden for reelection over a year ago. The Democrat describes himself as "the most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history"—and he has mostly avoided angering organized labor, other than working with Congress to block a national rail strike in December 2022.
Biden became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line when he rallied with United Auto Workers members in September. The UAW endorsed him in January, when the group's president, Shawn Fain, sharply criticized Trump and warned that "rarely as a union do you get so clear of a choice between two candidates."
O'Brien struck a much different tone on Monday, praising the ex-president and "characterizing both parties as ambivalent about unions with room to improve," as Post reporter Jeff Stein pointed out on social media. In addition to Sanders, Stein highlighted, "there are 48 Senate sponsors of the PRO Act. They all caucus with the Democratic Party. Zero are Republicans."
Only Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)—who ditched the Democratic Party shortly after the 2022 election—have joined with the chamber's Republicans to oppose the PRO Act. In the GOP-controlled House, the bill is backed by every Democrat but just three Republicans: Reps. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and Christopher Smith (N.J.).
"On June 21, 2023, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders passed the PRO Act 11-10," Warren Gunnels, the panel's majority staff director, noted Tuesday. "Every Democrat on the committee voted yes. Every Republican on the committee voted no."
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said, "To the Republicans at the RNC who want to appear to support American labor, here's an idea: Come join us to pass the PRO Act."
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Bipartisan Group of Senators Announces Deal to Ban Stock Trading in Congress
"If you want to serve in Congress, don't come here to serve your portfolio, come here to serve the people," said a Democrat leading the effort.
Jul 10, 2024
A small, bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Wednesday announced a proposal to ban trading of individual stocks by members of Congress and certain of their immediate family members, drawing praise from watchdog groups.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) brought forth the bill, which would tighten rules on holdings of individual stocks and establish what Merkley described as "huge" penalties for noncompliance—the equivalent of a member's monthly salary, or 10% of the value of the improper investment, whichever is greater.
"If you want to serve in Congress, don't come here to serve your portfolio, come here to serve the people," Merkley toldNational Public Radio.
In response to the announced deal, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, wrote on social media: "Great news. Let's get it done!"
Couldn't agree more 🎉 https://t.co/cDVPkti4Zm
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) July 10, 2024
The American public, across the political spectrum, overwhelmingly supports banning stock trading by members of Congress, as a University of Maryland poll showed last year.
Members of Congress have access to a great deal of insider information, or at least publicly unavailable information, that they can use to trade advantageously. They significantly beat the market in 2023, according to a watchdog report.
U.S. lawmakers have hesitated to rein themselves in. Several proposals to restrict the trading have been put forth in recent years, though no bill has made it all that far. Assessing the chance of success at an effort last year, Politicosaid, "Don't hold your breath."
Congress did pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in 2012, but that law is widely considered weak and ineffective.
Some Democrats tried to push through reforms to the STOCK Act when they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency in 2022, but they were stymied by the top two House Democrats at the time, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who expressed opposition to reform of the act.
Pelosi, whose husband Paul Pelosi trades stocks, said during that congressional cycle that the U.S. was a "free-market economy" and members of Congress should be able to "participate in that."
Pelosi was one of the inspirations for what The Washington Post recently called "tongue-in-cheek financial products." The investment vehicles copy the holdings of well-known members of Congress by buying and selling the same stocks they are buying, per public disclosures. Members of Congress can make the disclosures anytime within 45 days of a trade, so the vehicles can't trade along with them in real time. Autopilot, an app, has a popular vehicle called the Pelosi Tracker, according toThe New Yorker.
Attempts at reform haven't fallen on neatly partisan lines—Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) teamed up last year—but have been largely pushed by Democrats.
Wednesday's announced proposal comes under the same name, the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, as a bill introduced by Merkley in April 2023. However, if it's the same bill, it appears to have been modified in negotiations with the other three senators, as media descriptions don't seem to match the text of last year's bill.
Hawley's inclusion in the group is notable—last year's bill had gathered the support of 23 senators, but no Republicans. At the time, Hawley criticized ETHICS for being too full of exemptions, and was pushing a similar bill he'd named the PELOSI Act. Ossoff also had his own effort to ban insider trading on Capitol Hill last year.
But now the senators have joined forces.
The newly announced ETHICS Act would require members of Congress, as well as their spouses and dependent children, to divest from holdings in individual stocks and place them in mutual funds. The law would apply to the U.S. president and vice president. It would also establish a publicly searchable database for all disclosures. It would go into effect in 2027, according to media reports.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, chaired by Peters, is scheduled to mark up the bill on July 24.
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