WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) on Thursday applauded the House of Representative’s passage of the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Capps is a cosponsor of an earlier version of this legislation that would ban insider trading by Members of Congress and their staffs, her office reported on Friday in a media release. The legislation passed by a 417-2 vote.
“As a cosponsor of the original version of this legislation, I’m pleased to see the House moving forward to ensure that Members of Congress and their staffs can’t profit from non-public information obtained through their official duties,” Capps stated in the release. “Members of Congress need to play by the same rules as everyone else and our constituents need to have confidence that is the case. I am concerned, however, that the Republican leadership weakened the bill to restrict enforcement actions and to exclude so-called ‘political intelligence’ consultants from trading on the exact same kind of insider information that members of Congress and their staffs have access to. We need to close those loopholes and ensure the American people that their government is as open and transparent as possible. I’ll be working with my like-minded colleagues to put that provision back in the bill, so a strong STOCK Act can pass the Congress and be signed by the president.”
A stronger version of the House bill has already passed the Senate. The House version of the legislation removed a provision that would require political intelligence consultants to disclose their activities, as lobbyists are already required to do. A provision to empower federal prosecutors going after corruption by public officials was also removed from the original version of the legislation. Differences between the two pieces of legislation will need to be resolved before the legislation is signed into law.