WASHINGTON — Legislation backed by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff that would prohibit members of Congress and their family members from trading stock in individual companies passed its first committee hurdle Wednesday.
In remarks during a U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing on the bill, Ossoff said that the proposed stock trading ban is a commonsense approach to addressing an ethical land mine for lawmakers.
“Georgians of all political persuasions, Americans of all political persuasions overwhelmingly agree that members of Congress should not be playing the stock market while we hold office, while we make policy that affects businesses and industries, while we have extraordinary access to privileged and confidential information,” the Atlanta Democrat said.
The vote to move the bill forward received bipartisan support, but not before roughly an hour of debate where several Republicans objected to provisions that would require lawmakers and people working in the White House to sell off holdings in individual businesses once they are elected.
U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the ban could force future members of Congress, or even presidential candidates such as Donald Trump, to sell stakes in their own private family businesses.
“We don’t want to have people trading stocks. Had the legislation been drafted to prevent that, I’d support it,” Romney said. “But it calls for divestitures of all sorts of assets that people would have that will prevent them from running for political office. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing because it’s been drafted in a thoughtless way.”
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, pushed back on his fellow conservatives’ concerns. He said he was open to improving the legislation but that some opponents seemed to be intent on killing the bill.
“Let’s be honest, members of Congress get information that is technically not insider information as defined by the securities laws (but which) is nevertheless extremely beneficial to know, and often we get it earlier than other people do,” said Hawley, a Missouri Republican. “That’s why senators rushed to trade stocks at the beginning of the pandemic and were investigated for it and ultimately couldn’t be prosecuted, because technically it wasn’t a violation of the securities laws.”
During the earliest phase of the coronavirus pandemic, both Georgia U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler faced scrutiny after buying and selling stock at the same time they were receiving closed-door briefings about the virus’ spread. Both denied wrongdoing, and neither faced any charges.
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