House Republican leaders pledged Thursday to vote on a bill in the new year that would ban members of Congress from owning or trading individual stocks.
However, the proposal likely would not include a provision that would prohibit President Donald Trump or future presidents from trading or owning the stock.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) said lawmakers have been working for months on a bill that will move out of committee and be voted on on the floor.
“We want to make that happen,” Scalise said.
He did not say whether the bill would extend to the executive branch, which is a sticking point for Democrats who want to make it a priority.
Some said that was likely not the case.
“This is just addressing Congress,” said Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, as she left a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other Republicans like her who are pushing for a ban on the deal.
“There will be a vote on the floor in January…no more insider trading,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
The leadership’s pledge comes a day after House Democrats introduced their own proposal that would ban the president and vice president, as well as members of Congress, from owning or trading individual stocks.
The Democratic Party’s maneuver risks derailing efforts that have so far been largely bipartisan.
Rep. Seth Magaziner (D.R.I.), who introduced the bill with the support of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), said Democrats will file an expulsion petition to force a vote on the bill in the new year.
An expulsion petition is a procedural tool that allows rank-and-file members to bypass leadership and force a vote if signed by a majority of House members. This tactic was rarely used until this year.
“There is simply no justification for a president, who has access to more inside information than the entire U.S. Congress combined, with much more power than individual members or the vice president, to be able to trade stocks in real time,” Jeffries said at a press conference Thursday.
Mr. Luna recently filed his own removal petition with the support of a bipartisan group of lawmakers on a separate proposal related to the stock transaction.
The petition, filed by Magaziner and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), does not include the executive branch.
As of Thursday, 74 members had signed Luna’s discharge petition.
It is already illegal for members of Congress and the president to trade inside information.
However, the law is rarely enforced, and the perception persists that lawmakers profit from information gleaned from their government positions.
The issue gained attention in 2020 after a series of deals made by a group of lawmakers at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, no lawmakers were charged with trading activity.
Further questions were raised earlier this year when some members of Congress, including then-Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), bought the stock just before Trump announced the tariff suspension.
President Trump supports banning individual stock trading by lawmakers.
But over the summer, the president blasted a proposal by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, that such a ban would include the president.
Following the criticism, Hawley’s bill was amended by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to make the ban apply only to future presidents, not Trump.
The committee advanced the bill with bipartisan support in July. The full Senate has not yet voted on the matter.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Speaker Johnson recently saw three successful discharge petitions forced through his objections.
This week, members of Congress gathered enough signatures on a petition to force a vote on expanding Obamacare subsidies. That vote has not yet been taken.
And most recently, he pushed through a floor vote to force the Justice Department to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. These files are scheduled to be released on Friday.
Luna said she would not withdraw her application for discharge even if Prime Minister Boris Johnson allows the ban to be voted on.
Magazine Jar encourages members to sign both petitions.
“I intend to sign both discharge petitions and hope that one of them crosses the threshold and comes to the floor,” Magaziner said.
