Even Congress thinks its members should stop playing the stock market – By Emily Stewart (VOX) / July 21, 2023
Congress’s newest attempt to ban itself from trading stocks, explained.
The vast majority of voters do not want members of Congress to trade stocks. Plenty of members of Congress say they don’t think they and their colleagues should be playing the stock market either.
And so a piece of bipartisan legislation has just landed that would accomplish just that. How this bill will fare, like multiple others before it, is unclear.
On Wednesday, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act, which would overhaul how members of Congress, the president, the vice president, senior executive branch officials, and their spouses and dependents would be able to invest.
It would bar them from holding and trading individual stocks. It also makes no exception for blind trusts, meaning they can’t put their investments in a little black box controlled by someone else who can make trades on their behalf, just without their knowledge. They would still be able to own mutual funds and index funds.
