Democratic Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii and Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia are the latest members of Congress to violate a federal law meant to ensure transparency in stock and other personal financial trading, a NOTUS review of congressional records shows.
Case was late in reporting seven purchases of Apple stock by his spouse, according to a filing on Monday with the House.
The stocks were purchased between a few months and nearly two years ago. Under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, lawmakers have no more than 45 days to disclose stock trades from the time they were made.
The filings said each stock was worth between $1,001 and $15,000, using the broad ranges that are standard on lawmakers’ financial reports. In an email to NOTUS, Case said “these were inadvertent omissions of automatic stock dividend reinvestments as reportable transactions.”
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He added that the exact amount of each reinvestment was “just over the $1,001 reporting threshold, so the total of the seven was less than $8,000.”
Case’s office declined to comment on whether the congressman has addressed the matter with the Committee on House Ethics, which polices the STOCK Act and can issue fines for late filings.
According to a separate public record, McCormick disclosed the purchase of between $100,000 and $250,000 in U.S. Treasury Bills – which are low-risk, short-term loans issued by the federal government – about two months past the deadline. It’s not clear whether McCormick or someone else in his family owns the bills.
McCormick is a repeat offender, having violated the STOCK Act last year when he reported up to $360,000 in stock purchases two years late, according to OpenSecrets.
McCormick’s office did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment. Tom Rust, chief counsel for the House Ethics Committee, declined to comment.
The STOCK Act puts the burden of submitting these disclosures on members of Congress, regardless of whether they have a financial adviser managing their trades.
Case and McCormick are the latest members of Congress to flout the STOCK Act just this week: Rep. Kelly Morrison, a Minnesota Democrat, violated the law when she was months late reporting seven figures worth of personal financial trades.
Since July, more than two dozen federal lawmakers have reportedly violated the STOCK Act, including Sens. Katie Britt, Susan Collins and Markwayne Mullin, who is now secretary of homeland security.
In the House, STOCK Act violators include: Reps. Linda Sánchez of California, Julia Letlow of Louisiana, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lisa McClain of Michigan, Pat Ryan of New York, Sheri Biggs of South Carolina, Donald Norcross of New Jersey, Ritchie Torres of New York, Troy Nehls of Texas, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, George Whitesides of California, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Austin Scott of Georgia, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Scott Franklin of Florida.
Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma was also late to file a disclosure, although his office denies it.
Amid the repeat violations, some members of Congress are pushing to ban stock trading for themselves and their peers.
Lawmakers in both parties have teamed up to introduce bills to end the practice. However, Republicans have been moving their own bill through the House this year to ban stock trading, a measure Democrats have criticized as being full of loopholes. That partisan divide, along with a government shutdown and a war in Iran preoccupying members, has the movement losing steam.
Case’s office declined to answer a question about whether the congressman backs the proposed stock-trade bans for federal lawmakers.
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