Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently introduced a bill that would ban members of Congress from actively trading in stocks. Many have raised concerns in recent years about elected representatives and senators trading securities based on private, non-public information that politicians have access to. Furthermore, Hawley asserted that members of Congress should be focused on serving the national interest instead of enriching themselves with their political power.
In the opening of his remarks, Hawley explained the objective of the legislation, stating, “The truth is, Congress should not be here to make a buck. Congress should be here to serve the American people. There is no reason why members of Congress ought to be profiting off of the information that only they get, that the rest of the American people don’t get.”
The senator added that even without non-public information in the conversation, members of Congress should not be spending their time and energy trading. “And I don’t care, even if you don’t have so-called insider information or information not available to the public, why should members of Congress be spending their time day trading rather than focusing on the priorities that the American people sent us here to achieve and focus on,” he said.
Hawley then directly called out his fellow members of Congress. “The only people you have to explain it to are here in this building. The only people who don’t seem to understand why stock trading should be banned are here in the capital. Every American gets it, and they’re right to get it. There is no reason why the personal profit of members of Congress should come first, it should come last. It shouldn’t be a consideration at all. And I’m proud to say, I think this bill takes a giant step forward to getting to that place,” he continued.
Senator Jon Ossoff spoke after Hawley, stating, “This is a historic moment in efforts to reform the ethics laws that govern Congress and across the state of Georgia, Democrats, independents, Republicans overwhelmingly agree that members of Congress should not be playing the stock market while we legislate and while we have access to confidential and privileged information.”
Ossoff noted that legislation ensuring the integrity of financial practices carried out by members of Congress has been long-needed. “This is long overdue. This is necessary. That is why, as I pledged I would when running for the Senate upon entering office, I introduced with Senator Kelly the Banned Congressional Stock Trading Act. That’s why I’ve been pleased to engage in this long and productive bipartisan effort to craft a path forward, and we’re now in a position with Chairman Peter’s leadership to bring this to the Homeland Security Committee.”
He added, “Again, this is long overdue. This is necessary, and this is a major step forward to have agreed a bipartisan path to ban stock trading by members of Congress Chairman, we look forward to the markup in the committee. Appreciate your leadership, and I know that Georgians of every political persuasion in every part of the state will be pleased to hear that we are making progress as promised, tackling this issue. Thank you all so much.”
Watch the press conference below:
Featured image credit: By Francis Chung, E&E News – https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-with-perfect-staging-hawley-becomes-the-face-of-sedition/article_4d76f299-911b-510a-9155-4a2a4db37191.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66470928
"*" indicates required fields