{"id":1459374,"date":"2022-05-01T07:59:50","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T11:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1459374"},"modified":"2022-05-01T07:59:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T11:59:54","slug":"some-democrats-suddenly-embrace-congressional-stock-ban-in-attempt-to-accomplish-anything-before-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/some-democrats-suddenly-embrace-congressional-stock-ban-in-attempt-to-accomplish-anything-before-midterms\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Democrats Suddenly Embrace Congressional Stock Ban in Attempt to Accomplish Anything Before Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsome-democrats-suddenly-embrace-congressional-stock-ban-in-attempt-to-accomplish-anything-before-midterms%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1459374&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>There are a number of nervous Democrats in Congress that are searching for some sort of \u201cwin\u201d to put up on the scoreboard before the midterm elections come washing over them. With most of their big-ticket (and widely unpopular) agenda items bogged down, some are looking at a possible ban on stock market trading by members of both chambers as one piece of low-hanging fruit that they might be able to get into the books. This is an issue that shows up in the news from time to time but never seems to garner much momentum in Congress. The underlying questions are the obvious issues of the propriety of members making bets on the stock market involving companies that they themselves are charged with regulating, potentially impacting the value of those stocks. There are <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/business-elections-jeff-merkley-congress-79c2449c353a55242c3003afa029e464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">currently bills in both chambers<\/a> that would impose some type of restrictions along these lines and they have each gained considerably more cosponsors than similar measures in the past. But that doesn\u2019t mean that either one of them will ever find their way to Joe Biden\u2019s desk, at least in part because of Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s seeming lack of enthusiasm for the subject. (Associated Press)<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When Rep. Abigail Spanberger first introduced a bill banning stock trading by members of Congress and their families, the Virginia Democrat managed to get only eight co-sponsors. So far this session, 62 \u2014 or about one out of every seven House members \u2014 have signed on.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a similar story in the Senate. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., a once lonely voice on the issue, had just one co-sponsor for his proposed stock trading ban in the last two congressional sessions. Now, he has nine.<\/p>\n<p>The uptick in support reflects a growing lawmaker appetite to tighten the rules around trading after several members faced heavy scrutiny for their stock transactions during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019ve always been of two minds on this subject. My inner capitalist recoils at the idea of forbidding anyone \u2013 including members of Congress \u2013 from having the opportunity to enrich themselves legally. If any of our congressmen want to go out and make some extra cash mowing lawns in their spare time, that\u2019s up to them, provided they are showing up for work and getting their legislative jobs accomplished. The same should be true for investing.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, however, there clearly are issues to consider when we have people who pass regulations on companies or enact other legislation on entire industries that could impact their stock values trading in those companies\u2019 shares. You don\u2019t have to technically be an \u201cinsider\u201d at a publicly-traded company to engage in insider trading. If you know, for example, that there will soon be a bill introduced that will significantly benefit the electric car industry and you run out and start buying up Tesla stock before the news breaks, you have used knowledge not available to the public to turn yourself a profit.<\/p>\n<p>The situation becomes even more complicated when you include the spouses and other family members of the senators and congressional representatives. The way the law is currently set up, members of Congress and most other government employees have to report the purchase or sale of stocks, bonds, and commodities within either 30 or 45 days, depending on the total value involved. But that doesn\u2019t seem to be working very well because the rules don\u2019t stop them from trading in stocks that may be influenced by congressional action. Also, as the linked report points out, there are quite a few members who are regularly either late making those disclosures or never report them at all. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s curious that one of the people who has been less than supportive of these types of regulations is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She has drawn a lot of attention over the very lucrative stock portfolios held by both herself and her husband. The Pelosis have reportedly banked upwards of $30 million from their investment plans. It eventually became so obvious that one investment manager <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/03\/08\/wallstreetbets-founder-debuts-new-fund-that-mimics-nancy-pelosi-stock-trades\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">launched a product<\/a> called the \u201cInsider Portfolio\u201d that mimics all of the stock transactions made by Pelosi and her husband. (If you are truly curious about Nancy Pelosi\u2019s trades, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/housestockwatcher.com\/summary_by_rep\/Hon.%20Nancy%20Pelosi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">monitor them here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that we should be able to get this issue under control without a total ban. If members\u2019 trades are monitored more rigorously, with significant penalties for non-compliance, that would be a start. Also, Any trades made in advance of announcements that would clearly impact a stock\u2019s price should be able to be flagged by an independent auditor, with penalties being charged to those who seem to be gaming the system. The bottom line is, if they think nobody is watching, some of them will try to benefit in this fashion. But if they know that any further insider trading could drain their bank accounts or endanger their phony-baloney jobs, they\u2019ll probably behave a bit better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a number of nervous Democrats in Congress that are searching for some sort of \u201cwin\u201d to put up on the scoreboard before the midterm elections come washing over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}