BURSTA bipartisan group of House members is set to unveil a compromise bill to ban stock trading by individual members of Congress and their families on Wednesday.
The legislation, titled the Restore Trust in Congress Act, is expected to combine and reconcile several previously introduced bills to ban congressional stock trading by members of Congress, according to an advisory.
Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are among the members set to be present at a 1 p.m. press conference on the legislation on Wednesday.
The proposal follows the Senate Homeland Security Committee in July voting to advance a bill to ban stock trades by members of Congress and the president and vice president. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was the only Republican who joined with Democrats to advance the legislation. The requirement in that bill would not apply until the start of the elected officials’ next terms, meaning it would exempt President Trump if enacted.
And it follows the issue gaining more and more attention as watchdogs highlight enormous returns on investments reported by members and their spouses in the market. Current law prohibits insider trading by lawmakers and requires more disclosures, but critics say the law does not go far enough to prevent conflicts of interest.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) had pledged to try to force a vote on stock trading ban legislation through a gambit called a discharge petition if leadership did not move forward on the proposal.
But on Tuesday, Luna said she would give leadership until the end of September to bring it up before moving to do so.
“I think that they’re going to put a consensus on the floor,” Luna said.
Roy said in August on CNBC that he is seeking to have stock trading legislation in the House go through the committee process rather than force it straight to the floor.
“There’s a group of us on a bipartisan basis who are saying, look, time is now,” Roy said last week on CNBC. “I told Republican leadership I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt to get through the ‘big, beautiful bill’ and to make sure we can move forward and advance the president’s agenda.”
Both Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffires (D-N.Y.) have said they would support a ban on members trading individual stocks.