CREW -- The House just passed a joke of a congressional stock trading ban
The House just passed a joke of a congressional stock trading ban
- Fri, Jul 24 2026 at 12:23 PM
Mark, we need to talk about the joke of a congressional stock trading ban that the House passed Wednesday night.
The Washington Post: “House passes stock-trading restrictions for lawmakers, but not a full ban”
For years, suspiciously timed stock trades have eroded public trust in Congress.
This is a real corruption issue that deserves a real solution, not a messaging bill so riddled with loopholes that it will do nothing to “stop insider trading,” as the name of the bill states.
Instead of working seriously to ban congressional stock trading, Republican lawmakers attached a completely unrelated voter ID provision that dooms the bill in the Senate.
Not to mention, the bill they passed leaves gaping loopholes: It does not ban members of Congress from owning stock, profiting from stock sales or making decisions that would increase the value of their stock portfolio that they hold.
Mark, the American people have lost trust in Congress to work in their interest. This lack of trust undermines our democracy and delegitimizes the institution and the government as a whole.CREW has been leading the fight for meaningful reforms to ensure public servants are working in the best interest of the people they serve.
We’ve testified to Congress, exposed questionably timed trades, put pressure on congressional leadership to act and most recently, submitted a letter to Congress in opposition to the Stop Insider Trading Act (SITA).
As we explained, some of the most notable and valuable trades by members of Congress and their families have been sales, not purchases, such as those made during the 2020 pandemic and 2023 banking collapse.
Sales during times of volatility create the appearance that officials are prioritizing their investments over resolving the crisis, prompting public outcry.
Additionally, SITA fails to prohibit many types of private transactions, including stock purchases of private companies, cryptocurrency purchases, commodity purchases, certain corporate bonds and exchange-traded funds, which are the functional equivalent of a public stock purchase.
Let’s be clear: Passing SITA will hide insider trading, not stop it. The only path forward that can restore the American people’s faith in Congress is serious reform through meaningful bipartisan cooperation.
Over 80% of Americans support banning congressional stock trading. Congress knows that, so they’re pretending to address it.
But we can’t settle for this bill or pretend that it’s good enough. If Congress is ready to get serious, it should pass the Restore Trust in Congress Act.
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