WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans engaged in a tense back-and-forth on Wednesday as lawmakers debated whether to advance a proposal banning members of Congress from engaging in stock trading.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee narrowly voted to advance a bill that would prohibit lawmakers and their family members from selling or trading stocks while in office, with just one Republican joining all Democrats in supporting the measure: Missouri Sen Josh Hawley. However, the bill was updated in recent days to restrict presidents and vice presidents from stock trading, angering many of Hawley’s Republican colleagues.
“We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted us to do for decades, and that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that, frankly, only members of Congress have,” Hawley said ahead of the committee vote.
The effort to ban congressional stock trading is not new. In fact, members on both sides of the aisle have pushed to eliminate the practice for years.
Hawley has been a leading advocate of the issue, reintroducing his Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act earlier this year to ban the practice altogether. The bill is a not-so-subtle jab at former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband has come under fire for engaging in stock trading while she’s been in office.
While Democrats have largely supported the idea of banning such trades, they took issue with the bill poking fun at one of the party’s most prominent members.
However, Hawley required some Democratic support to get the bill through the Homeland Security Committee due to opposition from committee chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., and a handful of other Republicans.
To get Democrats on board, Hawley agreed to rename the legislation — removing the PELOSI moniker — and extending restrictions to future presidents and vice presidents. The bill would not apply to President Donald Trump or Vice President JD Vance, and would only take effect for future administrations.
That provision angered several Republicans on the committee, who attacked the ban as “another way the Democrats are going against the president of the United States.”
“I don’t know why we would want to pass something like this that attacked the president of the United States,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who voted against the legislation, told reporters. “On top of that, I’m tired of people attacking people because they’ve made money. Thank God people made money. That’s how this country was built.”
Scott reiterated those sentiments during the committee hearing on Wednesday, engaging in a tense back-and-forth with Hawley to defend those who engage in stock trading.
Hawley railed against the practice in his remarks, taking pride in himself that he is “not a billionaire, unlike others on this committee” — a presumably veiled attack toward Scott, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, who sat directly to his left.
“I practice what I preach,” Hawley said. “I don’t have individual stocks. I don’t trade in stocks.”
Scott shot back in his own remarks, arguing: “I don’t know when in this country it became a negative to make money. I lived the dream that many of us wanted to live.”
“This idea that we’re going to attack people because they make money is wrong,” he added. “It’s absolutely wrong.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also rejected the bill, telling reporters he thought it was “poorly written.”
“This a bill that doesn’t just reform stock trading. It tells everybody who’s been a career they have to sell their business,” Paul said. “It’s sort of a heavy-handed, not very thoughtful approach.”
Ultimately, all Republicans on the panel except for Hawley voted against the bill. Still, it advanced in an 8-7 vote.
It’s not clear when, or if, the bill will be brought to the Senate floor for a full vote. Meanwhile, some House Republicans are laying the groundwork themselves for a separate vote on banning congressional stock trading.