Conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, an overwhelming majority of Americans want members of Congress to stop trading individual stocks.
But on Wednesday, after months of legislative momentum toward a measure designed to fight insider trading, curb conflicts of interest and stop rampant violations of existing financial disclosure laws, Congress’ best shot this decade at a stock-ban law died unceremoniously in the Senate during a party-line procedural vote.
So why did such an uncommonly popular measure unravel so abruptly?
Fundamentally, this week’s failure is the culmination of a decade’s worth of discarded political opportunities and partisan ill will. In public statements and campaign ads, many members of Congress from both parties say they’re staunchly opposed to congressional stock trading. But despite a real opportunity to legislate changes, they didn’t deliver.
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The contemporary push for a congressional stock-trading ban began in earnest during 2021.
Democrats enjoyed a rare Washington power trifecta, controlling the White House, House and Senate. They were keen to fix what they considered a post-Trump political system eroded by self-interest and drowned in big money. COVID-era accusations of insider trading against several senators rocked Capitol Hill. So, too, did stock investment disclosure scandals involving lawmakers such as then-Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-New Jersey).
But then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Republicans have made a sort of avatar for stock-trading excess because of her husband’s massive stock sales and purchases, resisted.
A Pelosi-controlled committee declined to attach stock-ban language to a larger ethics bill known as H.R. 1. Pelosi rejected a stock trading ban, declaring: “We are a free-market economy.” She later softened her stance after pressure from her party. But weeks before Republicans were set to assume control of the House, Pelosi let an active and actionable stock-ban bill die in December 2022.
Meanwhile, dozens of federal lawmakers kept violating the existing Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, a bipartisan, Obama-era law that was supposed to keep elected officials from using their public perch to pad their personal finances.
Democrats and Republicans alike kept skirting the STOCK Act, and that’s no statement of false equivalence, as social media scolds so often cry. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provisions on a nearly 1-to-1 basis this decade, a Washington Sun analysis indicates.“Part of this is compliance with the law, and part of this is the idea that shame is gone,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who as a member of Congress introduced the House’s version of the STOCK Act. “All of this stuff undermines faith in government.”
Should everyone in Congress now simply stop trading individual stocks?
“Absolutely. One-hundred percent,” Walz told The Sun recently. “If you’re going to run for office, you shouldn’t do it.”
Meanwhile, apparent financial conflicts of interest continued unabated. Members of the House and Senate armed services committees traded defense-contractor stocks. Members of financial committees traded financial stocks. Lawmakers championing health care legislation bought and sold shares of pharmaceutical and medical tech companies.After stock-ban false starts during 2023 and 2024, lawmakers reenergized debate last year, motivated in part to rehabilitate Congress’ historically dismal approval rating, which many considered self-inflicted — from accusations of sexual misconduct to bribery to fraud to various flavors of personal enrichment.
Several current and former prolific stock-trading House members — Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Rob Bresnahan (R-Pennsylvania), Val Demings (D-Oregon), Jefferson Shreve (R-Indiana), Kelly Morrison (D-Minnesota) — chose to quit cold turkey after enduring criticism and scrutiny.
The Republican-led Senate passed one stock ban bill out of committee in July 2025. Several bipartisan House efforts stalled out, particularly those that sought to squelch President Donald Trump’s stock-trading habits or otherwise involve the executive branch. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, at times a stock-ban skeptic, endorsed the leadership-backed Stop Insider Trading Act in early 2026. Trump blessed the bill during his State of the Union address in February.
The Republican-controlled House did something in July that no Democratic-led chamber achieved: It passed a stock-ban bill on an up-and-down vote, 232-198, with 13 Democrats joining all Republicans.
But the Stop Insider Trading Act ran into two roadblocks in the Senate that kept the chamber from sending the measure to Trump’s desk.
The first: Republicans’ insistence on tying it to a national voter identification requirement, a nonstarter for Democrats.
The second: Loopholes in the bill that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described as “swiss-cheese legislating.” For example, it allowed lawmakers to continue holding and selling stocks they already own. Republicans largely scoffed at this argument, with Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska) lamenting Wednesday that “Senate Democrats refused to support this commonsense bill” that would have “tackled insider trading to rebuild public trust and make sure Congress plays by the rules.”
The Stop Insider Trading Act’s failure means the STOCK Act remains unchanged. In dozens of interviews with The Washington Sun during the past year, Democratic and Republican lawmakers and operatives alike generally agreed that the law’s ineffectiveness and lawmakers’ habitual noncompliance stem from a lack of consequences and enforcement.
A few members of Congress have simply ignored STOCK Act requirements or those of the related Ethics in Government Act. Violation fines — $200 for a first-time offender — border on comical, mere pocket change for elected officials who often measure their personal wealth in seven, eight or even nine figures. Even Rep. Michael Guest (R-Mississippi), the House Ethics Committee chairman charged with overseeing STOCK Act compliance, violated the STOCK Act in August.
And in the 14 years since its passage, there’s never been a STOCK Act-related criminal prosecution.
Could a congressional stock ban be resurrected after the midterm elections?
With less than three months between the midterms and the start of the new Congress, a fresh push to pass the stock-trading ban would face the same partisan obstacles as it did before. That could leave the issue for the next class of lawmakers to take up in 2027.
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