Senate Votes Down Stock Trading Ban Critics Say Doesn’t Go Far Enough

Legislation aiming to ban members of Congress from insider trading failed to meet the necessary 60-vote threshold Wednesday after Democrats voted against it.

The Stop Insider Trading Act would generally prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and children from purchasing new individual stocks, requires public notice before they sell stocks and bans them from purchasing covered investments, which is a publicly traded company or comparable economic interest. The bill will not reach a final vote after failing to get through the procedural vote.

The bill would allow members of Congress to hold onto their existing holdings and sales of those existing holdings require between seven and 14 days of public notice.

Democrats opposed the insider trading bill, which included provisions from the Safeguard America Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that the bill was a “fraud” and that Republicans were only pretending to care about insider trading.

“All of a sudden, the GOP is pretending to care about stock trading,” Schumer said during a press gaggle attended by the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Last July, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee advanced a strong bipartisan bill to ban congressional stock trading. Republicans abandoned this effort. Now they watered down the ban and created loophole after loophole in this sham legislation. Let’s be clear, this bill does not ban stock trading.”

House Democrats argued the provision was a “poison pill” and that the bill did not go far enough. They argued it did not go far enough because it allowed members to keep shares and did not prohibit the president, vice president or cabinet members from trading.

“It doesn’t actually prohibit members from trading stock,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. “And of course, it didn’t include the president, the vice president and the cabinet. Which is extraordinary, given that during Donald Trump’s first year as president, he’s traded more stocks than every other member of Congress combined.”

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said the House’s version of the bill was “not nearly as robust” as he would have preferred, although hinted at supporting it and adding stronger language.

“If that’s what the House is able to pass, I’m certainly happy to take that and to work with it. As I say, I’d like to see something stronger. I’d like to see tougher penalties. I’d like to see an across the board ban on any kind of stock trading in stock ownership by members of Congress,” Hawley said.

Candidates and groups in over 80 races spent over $117 million on television advertisements about stock trading by lawmakers, according to Punchbowl News. One ad from WinState, a super political action committee (PAC) aligned with Democratic leadership, claimed that Republican Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan “has nearly quadrupled his net worth while in D.C.” and “broke congressional stock trading laws.” Another ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) called former Democratic Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria “one of Washington’s biggest stock traders” who got “caught trading stocks in industries she voted to subsidize.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi wealth grew at least 2,292% through stock trading during her 37 years in Congress. She had a $2,675,036 minimum net worth in the year she began serving and a $63,996,050 minimum net worth in 2024. Her maximum net worth in 2024 was an estimated $311,443,000, her filings show.

Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna’s family traded shares valued at about $24 million to $147 million, according to The New York Times. Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul’s family bought and sold between $28 million and $75 million in individual stocks since Jan. 2025 over the course of 1,100 transactions.

Republican Oklahoma Sen. Alan Armstrong traded about $8 million to $41 million worth of shares across nearly 700 individual trades, according to the Times.

The House passed the legislation in a 232 to 198 vote, with all the “no” votes being from Democrats. Thirteen Democrats, including Democratic Florida Rep. Kathy Castor and Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, voted with Republicans.