A bipartisan group of senators advanced legislation Wednesday morning that would place new restrictions on lawmakers, the president and vice president from trading or holding individual stocks — over the fierce objections of most Senate Republicans on the panel.
Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley voted with Senate Democrats 8 to 7 to pass the proposed stock trading ban out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The majority of Republicans on the panel vigorously opposed the effort, arguing that it unfairly targeted the wealthy and infringed on President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s authority — despite the measure carving out an exception for the current administration.
“We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted us to do for decades, and that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that, frankly, only members of Congress have in the buying and selling of stock,” Hawley said during debate over proposed stock trading ban. “[Eighty-six percent] of Americans say that members of Congress should not be able to buy and sell shares of stock, individual stock, while they are members of this body, and they are absolutely correct.”
“This idea that we’re going to attack people who make money is wrong,” Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott said during debate over the measure. “We should cherish all of our different backgrounds.”
“I think it’s disgusting what is going on here,” Scott continued. “I completely agree with you — we’ve got to stop people from trading stocks, but this is way different. This is an attack against the president, an attack against the vice president.”
Lawmakers and voters alike have called to ban stock trading for years. Hawley’s legislation, the PELOSI Act — which he reintroduced in April — was named after Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has faced allegations in the past for using insider trading to rake in millions of dollars. Pelosi has claimed the trading was performed solely by her husband. The couple’s net worth is reportedly over $400 million dollars.
“People see people like Nancy Pelosi getting filthy rich and they’re pissed, right? Because they see their own lives getting worse,” Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno told the DCNF after the vote. “I don’t think they’re jealous of people that are wealthy. I think what they see is, how did you take your job and monetize it to that level? So it’s kind of grotesque.”
Moreno, the original co-sponsor of the legislation, told the DCNF that although banning stock trading is vital, the committee hearing was a “circus” and “not serious legislating” as lawmakers were not made aware of drastic markups the legislation had undergone prior to the hearing.
“I didn’t get [legislative] text until I walked in. And then Gary Peters himself is saying, ‘All we made is technical changes.’ I pointed out just page four, page five, at a bunch of red lines and markups. He didn’t even know. So Gary Peters voted on his own bill and didn’t even know what was in there,” Moreno told the DCNF.
Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee, told the DCNF he appreciated the opportunity to work with Hawley in a bipartisan fashion, claiming the lawmakers made “some progress.”
Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin did not seem thrilled about exempting the Trump administration from the bill, she told reporters she was “willing to make the good work instead of waiting for the perfect.”
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