US lawmakers get more time for market bets

Legislation to ban stock trading by members of the US Congress will not be put to a vote before the Nov 8 midterm elections, leaving members and relatives to continue to trade shares in companies that they may also be regulating.

House majority leader Steny Hoyer said on Sept 29 that House members "need time to look at it and make sure that when we do something, we do it right".

The House went on recess on Oct 1 and will continue after the midterms.

On Sept 27, House Democrats introduced a 26-page bill, titled Combatting Financial Conflicts of Interest in Government Act, which would ban many government officials from trading or owning investments in individual securities, commodities, futures, cryptocurrency or other digital assets.

Those covered by the legislation include Congress members, their spouses and dependent children, senior congressional staffers, the president, vice-president, political appointees, judicial officers including Supreme Court justices and various judges, members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the president or vice-president of a Federal Reserve bank.

In 2020, Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger, along with Texas Representative Chip Roy, introduced the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust in Congress Act, or TRUST.The bill would have required members of Congress, along with their spouses and children, to put investments into blind trusts or keep their money in mutual funds.

But Spanberger told The New York Times that rather than embracing the legislation, "House leadership decided that they wanted to kind of reinvent the wheel "and write their own bill.

The latest legislation would allow lawmakers to invest in diversified mutual funds and exchange-traded funds; US Treasury bills, bonds, and notes; and state and municipal bonds.

Spanberger blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not bringing any of the legislation to the House floor.

Pelosi told reporters on Sept 30 that she did not believe the measure had the votes to pass because of widespread concerns among members.

"The American people are mad about it," Spanberger told Fox News on Oct 12.

Spanberger said Pelosi "employed stall tactic after stall tactic in order to keep delaying what's potentially a vote on any bill that would ban members of Congress from buying and selling stocks".

Newsweek reviewed disclosures showing that Pelosi and her husband Paul purchased approximately $10 million to $32 million worth of stocks last year.