The old saying “the rich get richer” does not appear to apply to leaders of Louisiana’s powerful congressional delegation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Sen. Bill Cassidy — chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — have witnessed their wealth stagnate or decline since arriving on Capitol Hill, according to a NOTUS analysis of their personal financial disclosures.
Johnson, Scalise and Cassidy all buck the expectation, and frequent reality, that accumulating political power corresponds to increasing personal wealth. Their mortgage costs play a key role in — but do not entirely account for — their financial downturns.
Cassidy, a medical doctor elected to the House of Representatives in 2008 and to the Senate in 2014, had an estimated median net worth of more than $2.2 million the year he was first elected to Congress — exponentially greater than the wealth of most Louisiana residents.
His 2008 personal financial disclosure indicated Cassidy and his wife owned stock in major companies including AT&T, Chevron, Clorox, General Mills and Johnson & Johnson. Cassidy also owned a one-story rental home worth from $250,001 to $500,000. Cassidy’s mortgage debt deducted $175,001 from his median net worth. (Personal finance disclosures don’t require lawmakers to report the value of their residences.)
Cassidy became ranking member of the HELP Committee in 2023 and its chair in 2025 following President Donald Trump’s election.
Cassidy’s 2024 personal financial disclosure filing indicates his median net worth has plummeted in recent years — to nearly negative $1.1 million, with two mortgages accounting for most of the deficit. He had sold off his stock holdings, too.
“I’ve spent the last 17 years in Washington working for Louisiana and laser focused on how to make it a better place to live. I’m not serving in the U.S. Senate to get rich and enrich myself — that’s not what leaders do,” Cassidy said in a statement to NOTUS.
Scalise, also elected to the House in 2008, entered Congress with a median net worth of just over $240,000. His 2024 personal financial disclosure filing shows that his net worth is now around negative $574,000.
Scalise, who became House majority whip in 2014 and majority leader in 2022, did not disclose a mortgage or home in his 2008 filing. While lawmakers are required to disclose mortgages on personal residences, congressional candidates are exempt. Neither lawmakers nor candidates have to disclose the value of their personal residence as an asset.
Scalise’s 2024 filing shows two mortgages: the first for at least $250,001 that he signed with Chase Bank in June 2013, and a second mortgage the same month with Gulf Coast Bank for at least $100,001. The only asset he disclosed is a joint bank account valued from $1,001 to $15,000.
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Cassidy and Scalise arrived on Capitol Hill in much better financial standing than Johnson, who was sworn into Congress in 2017 and became speaker of the House in 2023.
Despite his powerful position, Johnson is one of the least wealthy members of Congress.
Johnson entered the chamber with significant mortgage debt — and a median net worth of negative $442,000, according to his 2016 filing.
By 2024, Johnson’s median net worth has barely budged. The value of his liabilities has also more or less remained steady — Johnson reported a 2013 mortgage valued from $250,001 to $500,000, a 2016 personal loan from $15,001 to $50,000, and a 2019 home equity line of credit from $15,001 to $50,000, according to his 2024 filing.
While many of Johnson’s congressional colleagues have disclosed all manner of personal assets — from stocks and bonds to cryptocurrency and rental property — the speaker is notable for disclosing no financial assets at all.
Government watchdogs have expressed skepticism about how a six-figure earner doesn’t even have a savings or checking account, say nothing of a retirement fund or other stores of wealth.
Johnson did disclose that he earned $29,890 from teaching “online college courses” through Liberty University. As speaker, he earns a government salary of $223,500.
Johnson declined to comment on his filings. Scalise did not respond to requests for comment.
Every year, members of Congress are required in annual financial reports to disclose the values of each of their assets and liabilities in broad ranges, such as $15,001 to $50,000. The ranges get bigger the larger the assets or liabilities get. The biggest value range they can report is open-ended — $50 million or more. There are also assets lawmakers don’t have to report, such as their primary residence or personal vehicles.
Still, disclosures offer a window into how Louisiana lawmakers are making their money. NOTUS calculated the median net worth of each lawmaker by first finding each member’s minimum net worth — the sum of the minimum value of all assets minus the sum of the maximum value of all their liabilities — and their maximum net worth — maximum asset value minus minimum liabilities. NOTUS then calculated the median between the minimum and maximum net worths.
Lawmakers filed their most recent financial disclosures in 2025, which cover their finances in 2024.
In addition to annual financial reports, lawmakers must also report most individual stock, bond and cryptocurrency trades within 30 to 45 days of the trade, per the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act.
Congress is actively debating whether lawmakers should be allowed to own individual stocks, given concerns about potential insider trading, conflicts of interest and rampant disclosure-related violations of the STOCK Act.
Johnson, who does not own stocks, according to his financial disclosure, has publicly said he’s “in favor” of a stock-ban bill — although Politico reported in September that he had privately argued for stock trading to help members pay for school and other expenses.
The House Administration Committee advanced a Johnson-backed bill in January — the Stop Insider Trading Act — that places some restrictions on stock trading by members of Congress, but ultimately allows lawmakers to keep and sell stock they currently own and lets family members continue to trade freely.
Other pending stock-ban measures, including the Restore Trust in Congress Act and the Restore Trust in Government Act, go further. To date, neither the full House nor Senate has scheduled votes on stock-ban bills.
Such a stock-trading ban, were it to pass, wouldn’t much affect Rep. Clay Higgins, a Freedom Caucus member who previously worked in law enforcement. Voters elected Higgins to Congress in 2016 with a median net worth of $8,501 and no stocks of any sort to his name.
Higgins reported no assets in 2024, when he took on a mortgage worth at least $250,001. That mortgage pulled his net worth down to negative $375,000 — but, again, he does not have to disclose the market value of that home.
Higgins said in a statement to NOTUS that he and his wife, Becca, “have lived a modest working family life, and we used to joke about wealth, saying we’re hundredaires.”
“A few years ago, we had paid all of our bills and we still had a couple of grand in the bank. ‘Wow, we’re thousandaires,’ Becca said,” Higgins added.
Other Louisiana lawmakers in Congress, however, have seen an increase in wealth since their arrival on Capitol Hill. Stock ownership has, in part, contributed to these spikes.
For example, House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Julia Letlow, a Republican who won a special election in 2021 to replace her husband after he died from COVID-19 complications, saw her median net worth rise from $673,000 to more than $1.2 million, in part through the purchase of stocks in companies such as Meta, Walt Disney and Walmart.
Letlow’s main home in Northeast Louisiana, where she lives with her children, was also listed as an asset on her original 2024 filling with a minimum value of $500,001, even though she is not required to report it. Letlow amended her report in January and removed her personal residence from her list of assets.
In January, NOTUS reported that Letlow violated the STOCK Act after she failed to disclose more than 210 personal financial trades on time.
Letlow’s office declined to comment on her personal finances.
Cassidy and Letlow are running in a Republican Senate primary against one another, and Cassidy has made Letlow’s stock trading a campaign issue, calling her “Nancy Pelosi 2.0” — an oblique reference to the tens of millions of dollars worth of stock trades the former Democratic House speaker’s husband has made in recent years.
Cassidy told NOTUS that elected officials “shouldn’t be allowed to cash in by trading stocks,” since they “have access to information that the public does not.”
Louisiana Democrat Rep. Troy Carter was elected to Congress in 2021 with a median net worth of negative $550,001.
Since then, Carter’s personal finances appear to have improved. His median net worth is $374,004 based on his latest filings from 2024, in part because he appeared to pay off a mortgage and several car loans.
Carter’s congressional office disputed that the lawmaker, who is 62 years old, has been in the red any time recently.
“Congressman Carter has not had a negative net worth since he was 25 years old. He has not purchased or sold any stocks during his time in Congress, and his stock portfolio has remained unchanged,” a spokesperson from Carter’s office told NOTUS in an email. The spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions about the congressman’s wealth.
Sen. John Kennedy, elected to Congress nearly a decade ago after serving as Louisiana’s state treasurer, went from having a median net worth of nearly $10.9 million in 2016 to more than $19.1 million in 2024.
Mutual funds have fueled the growth in Kennedy’s wealth, according to his financial disclosures.
The minimum value of mutual funds held by Kennedy and his spouse increased from $707,000 in 2016 to nearly $7.1 million in 2024. He and his wife have also held the same mortgage, currently valued from $100,001 to $250,000, since 2011.
Within the delegation, Rep. Cleo Fields, a Democrat reelected in 2024 nearly two decades after a two-term stint in the mid-1990s, has also accumulated significant personal wealth. Fields’ median net worth is nearly $38.6 million, per an analysis of his 2024 annual financial disclosure.
And he’s made headlines for some of his stock trades.
In October, NOTUS reported that Fields purchased from $80,000 to $200,000 worth of Oracle shares days before Trump signed an executive order indicating the company would play a key role in splitting TikTok off from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
In December, Fields purchased from $200,000 to $500,000 worth of Netflix stock at a time when the entertainment giant was attempting to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which was attracting the attention of the Trump administration and Trump himself.
Fields also has made several recent purchases of stock in Palantir, a company that has scored massive federal government contracts with the Department of Defense and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
When asked by NOTUS in February about his Palantir investment, Fields said that he didn’t “have any thoughts on that,” but then added: “Palantir, I wish I could get my money back, I wish I could get my money back.”
Fields has made more than 210 stock trades — together worth well into the millions of dollars — since he was sworn into Congress in January 2025, according to congressional disclosure records.
Fields and Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment.
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