Reform #5. Ban congressional stock trading

Eighty-six percent of Americans want it banned, and they have wanted it banned for as long as anyone has thought to ask. The issue covered is one of the few questions in American political life on which Republicans and Democrats agree by margins that pollsters rarely see on anything else. In a 2023 University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation survey of more than 2,500 registered voters, 87 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of Democrats, and 81 percent of independents said members of Congress should be prohibited from owning or trading individual stocks in companies.¹ Subsequent polling by Data for Progress, the Campaign Legal Center, RealClear, and several news organizations has produced numbers within a percentage point or two in either direction.² On almost no other question of American politics is the cross-partisan margin this wide or this stable.

The bipartisan ridicule of the practice has become its own minor genre of American commentary. In May 2024, the comedian Jon Stewart, guest-hosting The Daily Show, replayed a press-conference clip in which then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi had defended congressional trading as the workings of a free market.³ "In a free market, everyone has access to the same information," Stewart said. "So unless you're going to put all of us on the committees, I don't get it."⁴ Eighteen months later, at a January 2026 press conference in Clearwater, Florida governor Ron DeSantis described members of Congress who "get elected having never shown any investment acumen ever in their life, and then all of a sudden, they become Warren Buffett on steroids."⁵

The clearest sign that congressional trading has become a settled feature of American economic life is that Wall Street has built financial products around it. In February 2023, an asset manager called Subversive Capital launched two exchange-traded funds designed to mirror the disclosed trades of members of Congress.⁶ The fund tracking Democratic members was given the ticker NANC, in honor of Pelosi. The fund tracking Republican members was given the ticker KRUZ, in honor of Senator Ted Cruz.⁷

What has not happened is a vote. The current vehicle in the Senate is the HONEST Act, negotiated by Hawley with Democratic Senators Gary Peters, Jeff Merkley, and Jon Ossoff. The bill would ban members of Congress, the president, the vice president, and their spouses and dependent children from holding or trading covered investments, require divestment beginning in 2027, and raise the late-filing penalty under the STOCK Act from $200 to $500.⁸ It passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 30, 2025, with Hawley joining every Democrat on the committee and every other Republican voting against.⁹ President Trump first said he would "absolutely" sign the bill, then attacked it on Truth Social the night after the committee vote, then walked back to "conceptual" support the following day.¹⁰ No floor vote has been scheduled.

The current vehicle in the House is the Restore Trust in Congress Act, introduced in September 2025 by Representatives Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, and Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, and cosponsored by 126 members from both parties, ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Lauren Boebert.¹¹ On December 2, 2025, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, filed a discharge petition to bypass leadership and force a floor vote.¹² A discharge petition requires the signatures of 218 members. As of January 2026, the petition had 79.¹³

Eighty-six percent of the country wants the practice banned. The bills have been written and rewritten, renamed and renegotiated, introduced in every Congress for more than a decade. The names of the lead sponsors include senators of both parties, a sitting Republican governor, two of the three most recent presidents, and the current Democratic minority leader of the House.¹⁴ No version of the bill has reached the floor of either chamber.

Footnotes

1. Steven Kull et al., Americans on Money in Politics, Program for Public Consultation, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, 2023. https://publicconsultation.org/united-states/stock-trading-by-members-of-congress/ ↩

2. Campaign Legal Center, "Congressional Stock Trading and the STOCK Act," updated 2026. https://campaignlegal.org/update/congressional-stock-trading-and-stock-act, https://fitzpatrick.house.gov/2024/7/fitzpatrick-golden-lead-bipartisan-coalition-demanding-vote-on-congressional-stock-trading-ban, https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/sens-moody-gillibrand-announce-new-bipartisan-bill-to-ban-congressional-stock-trading/ ↩

3. Dan Mangan, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Opposes Banning Congress Members from Owning Individual Stocks," CNBC, December 15, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/15/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-opposes-banning-stock-buys-by-congress-members.html ↩

4. Sharon Knolle, "Jon Stewart Commends Government Officials Like Nancy Pelosi for Getting Away With Legal Corruption," TheWrap, May 14, 2024. https://www.thewrap.com/jon-stewart-daily-show-nancy-pelosi-corruption/ ↩

5. Liv Caputo, "'Warren Buffet on Steroids': DeSantis Calls for Transparency on Congressional Stock Trading," The Floridian, January 6, 2026. https://floridianpress.com/2026/01/warren-buffet-on-steroids-desantis-calls-for-transparency-on-congressional-stock-trading/ ↩

6. Chris Katje, "Want To Copy 'Master Trader' Nancy Pelosi's Investments? There's An ETF For That," Benzinga, February 7, 2023. https://www.benzinga.com/markets/penny-stocks/23/02/30768851/ ↩

7. Subversive ETFs, "Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF Ticker Change," March 18, 2025. https://subversiveetfs.com/gop/ ↩

8. Office of Senator Jeff Merkley, "Committee Advances Peters, Hawley, Merkley, and Ossoff Bipartisan Legislation to Ban Member Stock Trading," July 30, 2025. https://www.merkley.senate.gov/committee-advances-peters-hawley-merkley-and-ossoff-bipartisan-legislation-to-ban-member-stock-trading/ ↩

9. Caitlin Yilek, "GOP Sen. Josh Hawley and Democrats Vote to Advance Congressional Stock Trading Ban," CBS News, July 30, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hawley-democrats-vote-stock-trading-ban-committee/ ↩

10. Henry Gass, "Congress Considers Ban on Member Stock Trades, Going Beyond Transparency," Christian Science Monitor, December 10, 2025. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/1210/insider-trading-stocks-congress-ban. See also https://readsludge.com/2025/08/01/senate-panel-advances-stock-trading-ban-for-lawmakers-with-trump-exemption/ ↩

11. H.R. 5106, the Restore Trust in Congress Act, introduced September 3, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5106 and https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/sens-moody-gillibrand-announce-new-bipartisan-bill-to-ban-congressional-stock-trading/. See also https://www.notus.org/money/congress-stock-ban-bill-vote-anna-paulina-luna-florida ↩

12. House Discharge Petition No. 119-11, filed December 2, 2025, by Representative Anna Paulina Luna. https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2025120211. See also https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5630696-luna-stock-trading-ban-discharge-petition/ ↩

13. Signature count as of mid-January 2026 per Clerk of the House. https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2025120211 and https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5654104-democrats-stock-trading-discharge-petition/ ↩

14. Stephen Groves and Lisa Mascaro, "Biden Backs Banning Stock Trades for Congress," Associated Press, December 17, 2024. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/24/remarks-president-state-union-address, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-backs-calls-ban-congressional-stock-trading/story?id=116888132, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5249112-congress-stock-trading-ban/ ↩