Why congressional stock-trade ban efforts are about to heat up

Business Insider

2 days ago

Get ready to hear a lot more about banning congressional stock trading.
A top Trump administration official says he's going to start pushing for a ban. Two House Republicans are, in different ways, gearing up to force a vote on the issue. And all the while, lawmakers keep failing to report millions of dollars' worth of stock trades on time.
"We've got to move," Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said on Fox Business earlier this month, saying that while he had given House GOP leadership "grace" as they worked to get the "Big Beautiful Bill" through Congress, that time is now over. "I'm going to demand that we vote on this, this fall."
It all comes after an explosive Senate hearing on a stock trading bill last month, where Republicans went after one another over whether President Donald Trump himself should be banned from trading stocks.
That led to Trump branding Sen. Josh Hawley as "second-tier," though the Missouri Republican later told BI that he was able to smooth things over with Trump later.
"He told me he wants a stock trading ban," Hawley said in July. "He remains committed to getting a stock trading ban, so we'll work with him to do that."
Potential House drama over a 'discharge petition'
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican known for challenging her own party's leadership, has said she'll start the process of forcing a vote on a stock trading ban when lawmakers return from the August recess.
"I won't sit idly by while members of Congress trade stocks, especially those on committees with direct influence over relevant industries," Luna wrote on X last month. "That's corruption at its core, and it needs to stop."
Luna has said she'll try to use what's known as a "discharge petition" to bring up a stock trading ban bill authored by Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
Under that process, the bill would have to be brought to the House floor for a vote — with or without the support of House leaders — if Luna is able to collect signatures from 218 members, a majority of the 435 seats in the House.
Not everyone who supports a stock trading ban is on board with Luna's approach. Roy, the co-sponsor of a different stock trading ban bill that has bipartisan support and has been around for years, told Fox Business that a discharge petition is "not the best way" to get it done.
"I want the speaker, and Republicans, to control this," said Roy. "Republicans need to control the floor, do our job, bring this to a vote."
Roy has been working with a bipartisan group that includes Democratic Reps. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to put forward a consensus stock trading ban bill.
But after months of discussions, they have yet to release legislative text. That's led Luna to largely dismiss their effort.
"Allegedly, there were 'talks' happening? With who?" Luna wrote on X on Thursday. "They were never going to bring a VOTE to the floor. I don't care if this upsets people."
The Florida congresswoman's effort is worth taking seriously: she has used this legislative tool before to bring up a bill on proxy voting over the objections of Speaker Mike Johnson, bringing the House to a halt for a full week in April.
Lawmakers keep reporting trades late
Johnson has said he's supportive of a stock trading ban — though he has "sympathy" for arguments against it. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries began forcefully supporting it this year in the wake of well-timed tariff trades by some lawmakers.
Even Trump has backed it, though some Republicans are wary of applying the bill's restrictions to him.
This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got in on the action, saying he himself would begin pushing for a ban on lawmakers trading individual stocks.
"I don't think we have the perfect bill yet," Bessent told Bloomberg this week. "But I am going to start pushing for a single-stock trading ban."
Meanwhile, several lawmakers in have been found in violation of the STOCK Act in recent weeks, disclosing millions of dollars worth of trades long after the 30-45 day deadline for doing so.
Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan, the fourth-highest ranking House Republican, was late to disclose over 500 trades made by her husband from March 2024 through June 2025, totalling at least $1.5 million. Republican Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania failed to disclose that his wife sold between $750,000 and $1.5 million in NVIDIA stock last year. And Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma was late in disclosing millions of dollars made by him and his wife since 2023.
Lawmakers are only required to disclose asset ranges on their reports, so we don't know the exact value of the trades.
Those lawmakers and their spokespeople blamed errors made by third-party financial managers and lack of awareness of the trades for the late disclosures.
A spokesperson for McClain told BI that the congresswoman "promptly filed the necessary paperwork immediately after being made aware of the transactions made in managed accounts and remains committed to transparency and adherence to all House financial disclosure rules and regulations."
"I take compliance with all House rules seriously and expect the same from those managing my accounts," Meuser told BI through a spokesperson. "This was a simple, automatic filing that should have occurred without error. The mistake was made solely by my brokerage and benefited me in no way."
Mullin's office did not respond to BI's request for comment, but a spokesperson told NOTUS that the senator doesn't trade himself, but relies on a third-party broker.