Jeffries gives jolt to stalled congressional stock ban push

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is giving a big boost to the effort to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, an idea that has bipartisan backers in Congress and broad support among the public.

The deliberate and public push from Jeffries — coming as he accuses Republicans of potential “stock manipulation” given President Trump’s suggestion that it was a “great time to buy” ahead of his tariff pause — is particularly notable given how his predecessor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), bristled at the idea.

But there is a long way to go before any changes take effect in law.

The push to bar stock trading for members of Congress gained steam in recent years amid reports that lawmakers may have breached laws in place to prevent transactions from being made on insider information, particularly around the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of government affairs at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, noted that it is a rare issue that has united hard-line conservatives and progressives.

“You would think it would be a potential winner because of those dynamics, but we just haven't seen it make it over the finish line,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. But with what “Jeffries said now,” he added, “hopefully we can pull together something that actually happens.”

Jeffries has backed the effort in the past, saying in September 2022: “I have said that I support a stock ban for members of Congress.”

But now, amid outcry over Trump’s tariff policy, allegations of potential market manipulation and reports of GOP lawmakers making recent trades, the Democratic leader leaned in, hard, on the issue.

“So many of these people are crooks, liars, and frauds. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is, of course, exhibit A,” Jeffries said on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” on Monday, referring to the firebrand Georgia congresswoman reporting buying tens of thousands of dollars in stock the day before and day of Trump’s pause in sweeping tariffs — which was followed by a market uptick.

“One, we do need to change the law so that sitting members of Congress cannot trade stock, period. Full stop,” Jeffries continued. “And until we get to that point, we obviously have to continue to highlight why this is problematic. And if Republicans are unwilling to hold a hearing on this matter, I can assure you Democrats will, on Capitol Hill, in partnership with the Senate. And we also will take this matter on the road.”

While the timing of the trades and Trump’s statement have spurred outcry from Democrats, no hard evidence has emerged to show individuals acted on insider information. Greene told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that all her financial transactions are made by a financial adviser, and that reporting all the trades gives “full transparency,” adding: “I refuse to hide my stock trades in a blind trust like many others do.”

Federal law already prohibits members of Congress from acting on insider information, and the STOCK Act signed into law in 2012 required members to report their stock trades within 30 days.

But ethics advocates say that law has no teeth — the penalty for violation is a measly $200, and no member has ever been prosecuted for violations — and that it does not solve clear conflict of interest issues. Polls in recent years have found broad public support for banning members from trading stocks, with a poll from the progressive firm Data for Progress finding 70 percent support among surveyed voters in 2022 and the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation finding 86 percent support in 2023.

“It's an ethical kind of cancer on the institution of Congress that they continue to engage in stock trading,” Hedtler-Gaudette said.

The biggest action on banning stock trading came last year when the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee last year advanced the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, which would ban members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from trading stocks. But it did not pass the full Senate, which has since flipped from Democratic to Republican control. 

Another leading bipartisan proposal to ban congressional stock trading is the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (TRUST) in Congress Act, which would require not only sitting members themselves but also their spouses and dependents to put certain kinds of investment assets into a blind trust. Lawmakers, led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), reintroduced that bill in January.

A spokesperson for Jeffries told The Hill he has been supportive of the TRUST Act and the ETHICS Act, but that he would work with committees of jurisdiction and consult with the broader Democratic caucus on the issue.

Republicans, meanwhile, are not shying away from the matter, despite Jeffries trying to tie it to Trump. Roy renewed his effort on Tuesday, taking a swipe at his GOP colleagues to join in.

“It’s long past due to end the obvious conflict of interest of members of Congress actively trading stock,” Roy told The Hill in a statement. “Republicans should stop dithering.”

Even the White House has left the door open to such a policy. Asked by The Hill on Tuesday if Trump would support a ban on members of Congress trading stocks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded: “I’m certain that’s something the president would be interested in looking at.”

If any stock trading ban has any realistic shot of getting a vote on the floor in the next two years, though, it will almost certainly need support from Republican leadership.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — who does not own individual stocks, according to his ethics disclosures — has not said much, if anything, on the issue of stock trading by members of Congress.

The Speaker, though, is facing some pressure from the right flank of the House GOP to take action on the issue. After Johnson was reelected Speaker in January in a dramatic vote, members of the House Freedom Caucus board who had withheld support for him released a letter saying they expected Johnson to put forward legislation to end stock trading by members of Congress.

At the same time, however, Johnson would risk losing support among other House Republicans if he were to move toward such an effort. In January 2022, after then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he may try limiting lawmakers’ ability to trade stocks if the GOP won the majority, which it did, the Republican leader faced pushback from a handful of members who slammed the idea.

Jeffries’s resuscitation of the push to ban congressional stock trading this month marks some of the strongest support from a House leader for the issue in years.

“It would have been nice if he'd come out a bit more vocally and really pushed to try to make it happen when his party controlled the House,” Hedtler-Gaudette said, but he acknowledged that “there was always the sort of, kind of, the Pelosi element of it all.”

Pelosi has drawn the ire of the public and ethics watchdogs over trades that, according to her ethics disclosures, were made by her husband, Paul Pelosi — who holds millions in stocks and options. And in 2021, the then-Speaker scoffed at the idea of banning stock trading for members of Congress when asked about it in a press conference.

“We are a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that,” Nancy Pelosi said.

But shortly after that, Pelosi directed Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the then-chair of the House Administration Committee, to draft legislation that would bar lawmakers and their senior staffers from trading individual stocks.

Months later in September, Lofgren released the Combating Financial Conflicts of Interest in Government Act. But it garnered criticism from ethics watchdogs and even from some Democrats for not being stringent enough, and from Republicans for cutting them out of the process.

The legislation never made it to the floor: With just days to go until the House was set to break for recess until Election Day, Democratic leadership did not stage a vote on the measure.

Pelosi at the time suggested the bill did not have enough support to clear the chamber, telling reporters: “You have to have the votes to bring it up.” The episode, however, left a sour taste in the mouths of many Democrats.

As news reports continue to roll in about eye-catching trades made by members, proponents of banning lawmaker stock trading are mobilizing, hopeful that this Congress will be different for their years-long push.

“Members of Congress and their spouses should be banned from owning or trading stocks, bonds, commodities, futures, or any other form of security - period,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) wrote on the social platform X this week.