What to Know About Efforts to Ban Congressional Stock Trading

Several bills have been introduced, though none with leadership support.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 11, 2025. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The effort to ban congressional stock trading has gained steam in recent months.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced a range of bills tackling the issue, as congressional leadership has supported the idea in principle.

So far, no bill has been brought to the floor, and supporters have expressed skepticism that such a measure can pass Congress.

Here’s a look at where the efforts stand and how they might influence the outcome of this debate.

Why Now?

The interest in members’ stock trading is a recent phenomenon. Members of Congress are required to file financial disclosures that detail their assets, including their stock portfolios. With the internet, online activists, traders, and others have been able to track in near-real-time the trades made by members.

The issue that arises is the public’s perception of a conflict of interest. As persons vested by the Constitution with legislative power, members have great ability to influence markets and stock prices with the way they vote. Their position also gives them access to privileged information, be it government data or political knowledge, that may also influence markets. The concern is that members may use this information for their self-interest, to make money through trading that is unfair at best, or akin to “insider trading” at worst.

“[The American people] do not send us here to enrich ourselves while we are voting on the issues they send us here to fix and address, and then have members trading stocks on [those] very issues. They’re supposed to be voting on an objective basis for the American people,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the leading proponents of a ban among Republicans, said at a press conference on Sept. 3.

Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said at that same press conference: “People should feel that their elected representatives put them, and their interest, first. We don’t need to sell the American people on this. ... I want to thank Congressman Roy for [efforts] to move this forward.”

Much attention has been paid to the portfolios of individual members, whose handsome returns on stocks in comparison to their annual congressional salary, $174,000, lead to incredulity and perceptions of corruption. The portfolio of former House Speaker and retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as currently tracked by Quiver Quantitative, has a trading volume of $164.39 million and has grown by 850 percent since 2014. Other members, in both the Senate and House, have been tracked, and their returns have been widely criticized.

Backbench members have prioritized the perceived issue with urgency. On Dec. 2, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) filed a measure known as a “discharge petition” this week in the U.S. House of Representatives. The measure allows the whole House, against the wishes of its leadership, to bring a bill or resolution to the floor for consideration and, on a subsequent vote, pass it. It requires 218 signatures to proceed.

“Both Republican [House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)] and [Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)] have acknowledged that insider trading in Congress is a serious problem and must be stopped, and have signaled support to stop the corrupt process of insider trading via individual stock trades, but political games have already started to play out behind the scenes so I couldn’t wait any longer,” Luna wrote of her decision. Since her announcement, many members of Congress and candidates for those offices have announced they'll sign her petition.

What Bills Are on the Table?

Several bills to ban stock trading have been introduced in the Senate and House during the 119th Congress, each with varying degrees of support. None have received the formal endorsement of the leadership of either chamber, or from President Donald Trump, who would have to sign any such bill into law.

The House bill with the most bipartisan support at present is the Restore Trust in Congress Act introduced by Roy with the co-sponsorship of Ocasio-Cortez, Burchett, Luna, and Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.). That bill received a hearing from the House Committee on Administration on Nov. 19, but the committee has not voted on it.

“This thing ain’t gonna pass,” Burchett said at a press conference after that hearing. “If we’re going to pass something in the House, the Senate will either (1) not take it up or (2) come back in righteous indignation and say, ‘We need to make this stronger.‘ Something totally ridiculous and send it back to us. This is a scam that’s being played on the American public. I realize what we’re up against. ... We’re in committee meetings. We hear things before y’all do.”

The bill that Luna seeks to move is the End Congressional Stock Trading Act, of which Burchett is the lead sponsor. That bill has not received as much support or attention as Roy’s initiative, and is one of several individual bills introduced by members on this subject.

In multiple previous Congresses, efforts to ban stock trading have failed despite a great deal of backbench support.

In the Senate, no bill has received as much attention as the House legislation, though individual senators have taken up the issue. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), for instance, has been vocal about the matter and periodically introduced a bill known as the PELOSI Act to impose a ban. PELOSI stands for Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments.

What’s the Opposing Argument?

There is no overt opposition to the effort, though proponents suggest that the other side is quiet due to the popularity of the issue, with members allegedly seeking to internally thwart the effort. No opponents of the idea have been publicly named or alleged, so the matter is the subject of speculation.

Johnson, however, has granted credence to some opposing arguments. He has cited the long working hours, intensity of work and travel, and fixed pay of members as being a reason to allow them to have additional sources of income, such as from stock trading.

“The other side of it, some people say, [is that] the salary of Congress has been frozen since 2009 and, when you adjust for inflation, a member of Congress is making 31 percent less than they made in that year, and it goes down every year. Over time, if you stay on this trajectory, you’re going to have less qualified people willing to make the extreme sacrifice to run for Congress,” Johnson said in May.

“The counter argument, and I have some sympathy, is: At least let them engage in some stock trading, so that they can continue to take care of their family,” Johnson added, though he said he still supported the ban in principle.

Others have argued that a ban would be unfair to members in a free market.

“We are a free market economy. [Members] should be able to participate in [trades],” said Pelosi.

Still, some members of Congress are reluctant to support a bill that applies only to Congress. In particular, Democrats have lobbied to include the president and vice president, as well as Supreme Court justices.

Currently, 86 percent of voters favor a stock trading ban on members of Congress, according to a poll by the University of Maryland.