It was recently reported that as calls grow for Congress to block stock trading by lawmakers, a bipartisan group of 27 House members has introduced a bill to do just that.Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said on Newsmax that his agreement with progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in signing on to the bill should urge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to bring it to a vote.
“Whenever AOC and I have signed on to the same legislation, I just think all of America ought to take time out and really review it,” Gaetz told Monday’s “Stinchfield.”
“At a minimum, we ought to have a vote on it.”
Trading stocks while serving in Congress is not illegal, but there is a small fine — the standard being $200 — for failure to report trading on potential conflicts of interest.
“Even if it’s not illegal, it’s swampy and it’s icky — and it makes people feel like their representatives aren’t really representing them, but representing their own financial interests,” Gaetz told host Grant Stinchfield.
“And we got too much of that in Washington on both sides, but we should at least have a vote. Let’s just have a vote and figure out where people stand. If it loses, it loses, but then the American people will get to make a judgment,” he said.
Gaetz suggested that a ban on stock trading might even be a way for lawmakers to ostensibly put term limits in effect, because staying out of the stock market for more than a few terms would prove costly over time.
“This legislation to prohibit stock trades from members of Congress really goes to what we think about our Congress,” he said. “If it’s a place you go for a few years, do your service and then return home — well, it’s not really that much of a sacrifice to suspend trading during that period of time.
”But if you have people who are in Congress for 10, 20, 30, 40 years — well, they think, gosh, that’s their entire opportunity to participate in the marketplace.” he said.
