The ETHICS Act – End Insider Trading in Congress

Both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate can agree on one thing – Congress has been using classified information to illegally trade stocks. Our public servants have been bought out by lobbyists and they no longer work for the public. A bipartisan group is passing on a formal consideration to prevent members of Congress and members, their spouses and dependents, from buying and selling stocks under the ETHICS Act (Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks).

“Congress should not be here to make a buck,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said at a press conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “There is no reason why members of Congress ought to be profiting off of the information that only they get.” The Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee will hear the proposed legislation on July 24, but this topic and consistently been blocked. “Would you like to vote in favor of losing millions in illegal trades?” We should not be allowing the very people abusing their office to vote on this matter.

The Ethics Act would give legislators 90 days to sell their investments beginning in March 2027. The president and vice president would also need to divest covered investments. Those in violation would lose either their monthly salary or a mere 10% of the value of each covered asset.

The severity of insider trading in Congress came to a head after March 2020 when the pandemic began. These insiders offloaded millions in stocks as they knew in advance what was to come. Over 72 lawmakers in the House and Senate received money from Big Pharma before the 2020 US Presidential Election. Over 50 invested heavily in the pharmaceutical sector before COVID became public, as reported by Open Secrets. Forty-eight lawmakers purchased Pfizer stock ahead of the vaccine rollout. Then these same lawmakers had the ability to vote on legislation that would directly benefit their investments.

Pfizer donated to 228 lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of the 2020 elections to the tune of $14 million. The company wrote out 1,048 individual checks to candidates and effectively manipulated the direction of the COVID pandemic as these lawmakers then voted on restrictions and mandates that benefitted Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies. Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of abusing their powers.

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) were some of the top recipients of donations from the pharmaceutical industry, both holding seats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Tillis and Coons penned a bill in 2019 to protect pharmaceutical patents. Stats News reported that few candidates funded by Big Pharma lost their re-election campaigns.

Pharmaceuticals are one of EVERY sector that American lawmakers have their hands in. Our public sector workers, whose salary is paid for by the taxpayers, made decisions that impacted the health of the nation simply to line their own pockets.

Those like Nancy Pelosi have made MILLIONS on insider trading. In one example, Paul Pelosi managed to save $600,000 by selling his stock a month before the microchip ban on Russia and China, which cost Nvidia $400,000,000. Another time, Paul earned $5,300,000 after exercising a call option to buy 4,000 Alphabet shares. Not so coincidentally, this occurred when the House Judiciary Committee cracked down on antitrust practices. Nancy claims her husband is merely an extraordinary trader, and she has no involvement in his obvious success. She was against legislation to curb insider trading until her seat was threatened in the 2022 midterms. The ETHICS Act would prevent members from curtailing already proposed restrictions by banning them from trading through spouses or dependents.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, proclaimed to his colleagues “if you want to serve in Congress don’t come here to serve your portfolio, come here to serve the people.” Congress is currently only required to disclose their trades. Everyone sees the unethical practice happening, but nothing has been done. “The fact that members of Congress do better than a generalized portfolio suggests that there’s privileged information that folks hear about — may not be inside information, maybe it’s early information, maybe it’s an insight that comes from working on a sector through your committee work or so on an so forth, But that is an issue,” Merkley said.

Merkley and others are concerned that Congress will protest the ban on members of their household, with the Senator saying “members of Congress get very twitchy and when you say your family will be covered too, they have concerns.” We must restore democracy by preventing our public servants from using us as pawns for profit. The abuse became so blatant after COVID that this is perhaps a measure that needs to be passed by executive order. Take note of those who oppose the ETHICS Act as they are clearly sold out politicians who should not serve as public servants.