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Restoring public trust, enforcing accountability, and ensuring fair markets isn’t just good governance. It’s good business.
It's a clear conflict of interest when lawmakers—who have access to privileged, non-public information—are allowed to shape policy while holding stock in affected companies. When members of Congress serve as both regulator and investor, it undermines confidence in both our democratic institutions and financial markets. Trading on privileged, non-public information is illegal on Wall Street and should be in Congress as well.
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Contact us to get involved.Americans overwhelmingly support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, viewing it as a critical step toward restoring public trust in government. The sentiment spans the political spectrum, with 86% of Americans—including large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents—in favor of a ban.
Today, the STOCK Act of 2012 requires members of Congress to file financial disclosures of their stock trades within 30 days and penalizes members who use privileged information for stock trading. However, the penalty for a member of Congress violating the STOCK Act is a mere $200 — not a meaningful deterrent. And despite persistent credible allegations, no member of Congress has ever been prosecuted for insider trading.
After years of stalled proposals, momentum is building in this session. In the House, lawmakers are working to craft a bipartisan consensus among several competing bills. The key points of debate include: who in a lawmaker’s family should be covered, how enforcement should work, and how “blind trust” should be defined. One bill—the TRUST in Congress Act—has already attracted support from more than 70 House members across both parties. In the Senate, bipartisan efforts are also picking up steam, with Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) renewing their push to prohibit stock trading by members of Congress.
The growing bipartisan support and intensifying public pressure have led Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to express their support. President Trump has said he would sign such a bill.
As the House and Senate work to forge compromise bills, key criteria that BFA advocates are:
