{"id":10674,"date":"2022-01-12T17:30:53","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T22:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/?post_type=press-releases&#038;p=10674"},"modified":"2022-01-12T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T23:02:05","slug":"sens-ossoff-kelly-introduce-bill-banning-stock-trading-by-members-of-congress","status":"publish","type":"press-releases","link":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/sens-ossoff-kelly-introduce-bill-banning-stock-trading-by-members-of-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Sens. Ossoff, Kelly Introduce Bill Banning Stock Trading by Members of Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>New legislation&nbsp;requires members of Congress&nbsp;and their families&nbsp;to&nbsp;place stock portfolios into&nbsp;blind trusts&nbsp;while in office<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/news\/588630-76-percent-of-voters-support-banning-lawmakers-from-trading-stocks-poll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Overwhelming&nbsp;majority<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;of Republicans, Democrats, &amp; Independents support&nbsp;a&nbsp;Congressional stock&nbsp;trading ban<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Members who violate rules of the<\/em><em>&nbsp;<\/em><em>\u201cBan&nbsp;Congressional Stock Trading Act\u201d would be fined in the amount of their entire Congressional salary<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Washington, D.C.<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014&nbsp;U.S. Senators&nbsp;Jon&nbsp;Ossoff&nbsp;(D-GA)&nbsp;and Mark Kelly&nbsp;(D-AZ)&nbsp;today introduced&nbsp;legislation&nbsp;to ban&nbsp;members of Congress and their families&nbsp;from buying and selling stocks while in office.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a&nbsp;move widely praised by good government groups&nbsp;across the political spectrum, the&nbsp;<em>Ban&nbsp;Congressional Stock Trading Act&nbsp;<\/em>will require&nbsp;all members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children&nbsp;to&nbsp;place their stock&nbsp;portfolios&nbsp;into a blind trust&nbsp;\u2014 ensuring they cannot use inside information to influence their personal&nbsp;stock trades&nbsp;and make a profit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Members of Congress&nbsp;who&nbsp;violate&nbsp;the&nbsp;<em>Ban&nbsp;Congressional Stock Trading Act<\/em>&nbsp;will be fined in the amount of their entire Congressional salary.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen.&nbsp;Ossoff, a former investigative journalist whose company&nbsp;exposed corruption around the world,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/senator-ossoff-leads-on-ethics-fulfills-campaign-promise-to-move-stocks-into-blind-trust\/\">fulfilled his pledge<\/a>&nbsp;to put his own stock portfolio in a blind trust last year, making him and Sen. Kelly two of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/meet-the-members-of-congress-who-dont-buy-and-sell-stocks-2021-12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">only 10<\/a>&nbsp;sitting&nbsp;members of Congress to do so, according to<em>&nbsp;<\/em><em>Insider<\/em>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/news\/588630-76-percent-of-voters-support-banning-lawmakers-from-trading-stocks-poll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">76 percent<\/a>&nbsp;of voters \u2014 across the political spectrum \u2014 believe members of Congress and their spouses should not be allowed to trade stocks while in office, including&nbsp;nearly&nbsp;78&nbsp;percent of Republicans&nbsp;and 80 percent of Independents.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMembers of&nbsp;Congress should not be playing the stock market while we make federal policy and have extraordinary access to confidential information,\u201d&nbsp;<strong>Sen.&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>Ossoff<\/strong><strong>&nbsp;said.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSince I took office, I have remained focused on making Washington work for Arizonans. This includes making Washington more accountable and transparent. Elected leaders have access to valuable information that impacts policy, the economy, and entire industries. This legislation I am introducing with Senator Ossoff will put an end to corrupt insider trading and ensure that leaders in Congress focus on delivering results for their constituents, not their stock&nbsp;portfolios,\u201d&nbsp;<strong>Sen. Kelly said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Congresswoman Abigail&nbsp;Spanberger&nbsp;(D-VA-07) and Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX-21) introduced&nbsp;similar&nbsp;legislation in the House of Representatives last year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Ban\u00a0Congressional Stock Trading Act<\/em>\u00a0has been endorsed by several leading ethics reform groups,\u00a0including\u00a0the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), National Taxpayers Union, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, FreedomWorks, and Issue One.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/BAN-CONGRESSIONAL-STOCK-TRADING-ACT-SUMMARY-.pdf\">Click here&nbsp;<\/a>for a summary of&nbsp;the<em>&nbsp;<\/em><em>Ban&nbsp;Congressional Stock Trading Act.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/BAN-CONGRESSIONAL-STOCK-TRADING-ACT.pdf\">Click here&nbsp;<\/a>to read&nbsp;the<em>&nbsp;<\/em><em>Ban&nbsp;Congressional Stock Trading Act.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"># # #<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New legislation&nbsp;requires members of Congress&nbsp;and their families&nbsp;to&nbsp;place stock portfolios into&nbsp;blind trusts&nbsp;while in office&nbsp; Overwhelming&nbsp;majority&nbsp;of Republicans, Democrats, &amp; Independents support&nbsp;a&nbsp;Congressional stock&nbsp;trading ban&nbsp; Members who violate rules of the&nbsp;\u201cBan&nbsp;Congressional Stock Trading Act\u201d would be fined in the amount of their entire Congressional salary&nbsp; Washington, D.C.&nbsp;\u2014&nbsp;U.S. Senators&nbsp;Jon&nbsp;Ossoff&nbsp;(D-GA)&nbsp;and Mark Kelly&nbsp;(D-AZ)&nbsp;today introduced&nbsp;legislation&nbsp;to ban&nbsp;members of Congress and their families&nbsp;from buying and [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10674","press-releases","type-press-releases","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/10674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-releases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/10674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10678,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/10674\/revisions\/10678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}