California Democrat Nancy Pelosi has come under fire for years over her controversial and well-timed stock trades. Now, several of her Democratic allies are joining Republicans to introduce legislation this week banning U.S. lawmakers and members of the executive branch from owning stock while in office.
Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York are set to introduce the legislation in the Senate, which would prohibit those affected from owning stocks in individual companies, even through a blind trust, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Senators, representatives, staffers on Capitol Hill, the president, the vice president, and members of the executive branch would all be subject to the law.
“It is critical that the American people know that their elected leaders are putting the public first,” Gillibrand told the Wall Street Journal in a statement, adding, “not looking for ways to line their own pockets.”
“Members of Congress and their spouses shouldn’t be using their position to get rich on the stock market,” Hawley said.
“The series of bills comes after revelations last year that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, traded between $1 million and $5 million of stocks for semiconductors just days before Congress allocated $52 million to the industry. The stocks were later sold at a loss to remove the appearance of impropriety,” Fox reported.
Pelosi, in particular, has come under fire numerous times for her controversial and well-timed stock trades.
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared Wednesday that “it’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
Ocasio-Cortez is a co-sponsor of the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act, which was reintroduced earlier this year by Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL). The legislation would bar members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from trading or owning individual stocks while in office.
“The ability to individually trade stock erodes the public’s trust in government,” Ocasio-Cortez stated. “When members have access to classified information, we should not be trading in the stock market on it. It’s really that simple.”
In fact, former President Joe Biden also appeared to take a shot at Pelosi before he left office in January.
A Republican senator says he believes that Biden’s call for a ban on congressional stock trading on his way out of the White House is a “dig” at Pelosi, who has come under scrutiny for years over her husband’s successful investments.
“I don’t think (Biden) and Nancy Pelosi are getting along very well right now after Pelosi fired him from being president,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told Alabama Daily News. “I don’t know how she was able to do that, but she convinced him to get out of the race, which he should have, but it was her.”
Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have achieved some of the highest stock market returns among members of Congress, with their trades reportedly yielding returns exceeding 720% over the past decade. As of August, the Pelosis’ estimated net worth exceeds $230 million, the outlet noted.
Pelosi has been hesitant to back legislation that would completely prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks. In 2021, she told reporters, “We are a free market economy,” adding that members of Congress “should be able to participate in that.”
“I’ve said all along that I don’t get anything up here that gives me an opportunity to make money on stocks any more than anybody,” he told ADN. “I don’t do it myself, I’ve got people that do it. I don’t get involved in that, I don’t understand what’s the big deal. I guess there are people that have made money somehow, some way; I didn’t come up here to do that.”
President Biden expressed his support for banning congressional stock trading in an interview previewed on Tuesday, set to be released this week by a far-left labor advocacy group called More Perfect Union.