Reported by: Kate Kelly and Alicia Parlapiano

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that Democrats would bring legislation to the House floor this month that would place new restrictions on the ability of lawmakers to buy and sell stocks.

Her announcement came a day after The New York Times published an analysis showing that between 2019 and 2021, 97 representatives and senators or their immediate family members had reported trades of stocks, bonds, or other financial assets that could have been influenced by committees they were serving on.

A version of a legislative framework in the House, outlined in a late August memo that was reviewed by The Times, would effectively prohibit lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children from making trades in individual stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other financial assets tied to specific companies.

Under the framework, which is the basis for the current negotiations over a legislative proposal, members of Congress would either have to divest those assets or move them into a blind trust in which they would have no visibility or involvement. Lawmakers would continue to be permitted to invest in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and some other categories.

According to the memo, the new legislation would also mandate more detailed transaction disclosures for the permitted investments — for instance, by narrowing the value ranges of assets that are published — and strengthen penalties for those who skirt or break the law.

“Congress can give these penalties teeth, which will promote compliance and provide tougher consequences for violations,” the memo states.

Read full report: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/us/politics/congress-stock-trading-legislation.html