Republicans Advance Congressional Stock-Ban Bill Along Party Lines

The House Committee on Administration on Wednesday advanced a Republican-backed congressional stock-ban bill to the full House of Representatives, which has been host to many violations of existing stock-trade laws and the subject of concerns that some federal lawmakers’ personal finances conflict with their public service.

Dubbed the Stop Insider Trading Act, the bill bans lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading individual stocks and requires them to file a public notice at least a week ahead of selling any existing stock holdings. Violators would be subject to a fine of “$2,000 or 10 percent of the value of the transaction in the covered investment … whichever is greater” and forfeit any net gains.

The bill ensures that “no member can profit off insider information,” Committee Chair Bryan Steil declared. “If you want to trade stocks, go to Wall Street. … The American people should be confident that lawmakers are working for them.”

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But the Stop Insider Trading Act, which advanced on a 7-4 party-line vote, faced withering criticism from the committee’s Democrats, who described it as wholly inadequate for defending against corruption in Congress.

Among their complaints: The bill would allow lawmakers to retain existing stock holdings, exempt investments such as cryptocurrency and commodities and still allow spouses and dependent children to continue trading stocks under certain circumstances. It also would not cover members of the executive branch and judiciary.

Democratic Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York and other committee Democrats offered several amendments to the Stop Insider Trading Act, including provisions that would ban all individual stock trades and extend a stock-trade ban to the president, the vice president, senior congressional staff and federal judges.

The amendments failed along partisan lines.

Morelle warned that the unamended Stop Insider Trading Act contains loopholes “you could fly a Qatari jet right through” — a not-so-subtle jab at President Donald Trump’s decision to accept for free a Boeing 747 from the Middle Eastern nation for potential use as an Air Force One plane.

The Stop Insider Trading Act is nothing more than a “political scam” by “Republicans pretending to care about corruption,” said Rep. Norma Torres, a Democrat from California.

“Incredibly disingenuous,” Steil shot back.

“Perfection is far too often the enemy of the good in this town,” Steil added.

Wednesday’s vote is more than 13 years in the making.

In 2012, Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which expressly banned insider trading by members of Congress, created a disclosure regime and instituted a fine schedule for violations.

But it didn’t ban federal lawmakers, or their immediate family members, from buying and selling individual stocks. Since then, dozens of lawmakers have violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure rules, including several in the past few months. NOTUS reported this week that Rep. Linda Sánchez, a California Democrat who supports banning congressional stock trades, violated the STOCK Act.

This is the first stock-ban bill of any sort this decade to advance out of committee to the full House.

In 2022, when Democrats still controlled the House, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — one of Republicans’ favorite targets of stock-trading criticism because of her husband’s big-dollar trades — ultimately torpedoed a stock-ban effort she initially supported.

Since then, Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced numerous variations on the stock-ban bill theme.

Momentum increased in 2025, in part because more than two dozen members violated the existing STOCK Act’s disclosure provisions. Lawmakers have also faced significant criticism for making curiously timed stock trades, particularly in the days before and after Trump declared a series of tariffs that roiled financial markets.

Trump himself has made hundreds of personal financial trades since he began his second term last year. And Trump administration officials such as Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler, who maintains massive holdings in the parent company of conservative TV news network Newsmax, and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who’s earned money by peddling Relaxium sleep pills, have continued to play the market and pursue personal wealth. Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro reported investing in an e-commerce company many state attorneys general say is allowing “unlawful conduct” and “pervasive illegality” by e-cigarette companies on its platforms.

Senators passed a stock-ban bill out of committee in July. Most recently, a bipartisan coalition of House members, which included some of Congress’ most liberal and conservative members, coalesced around a stock-ban bill called the Restore Trust in Congress Act. The House Administration Committee conducted a hearing on it in November.

In December, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna circulated a discharge petition that would force a House vote on the bill if a majority of House members signed it; only 78 members have signed on to date.

Also in December, House Democrats introduced a separate bill without Republican support, the Restore Trust in Government Act, which extended stock-trading prohibitions beyond Congress to the White House.

Before Wednesday’s hearing, prominent Democrats were already sniping at the Republican-backed stock-ban bill as “weak.”

“It’s absurd and an insult to people’s intelligence. Stop playing games. Ban congressional stock trading,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on X.

“Do not buy this scam bill being put forward by the wealthiest members of Congress,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “The majority of members and Americans support a clean stock trading ban. We have the votes on it.”

Several government watchdog groups were equally unimpressed.

“The Stop Insider Trading Act is a joke,” said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director and Chief Counsel Donald K. Sherman, arguing it “maintains the status quo and provides members of Congress with loopholes so that they can continue to enrich themselves, all while claiming to advance meaningful reform.”

But speaking with Fox News, House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “AOC, as usual, has no idea what she’s talking about.”

“This is an important step to go forward, because there have been a handful of people who have abused that over the years, and they’ve enriched themselves and they’ve engaged in insider trading,” Johnson said Wednesday morning of the Stop Insider Trading Act. “It’s against the law, but we have to police it here because it’s people’s belief and faith and trust in Congress that’s at stake.”