Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Chip Roy make bipartisan push for Congress stock trade ban

Congressional reformers feel “disgust” for colleagues who parlay privileged information into stock-market gains — and are making a bipartisan push to force hearings on a bill that would ban House and Senate members from making trades while in office.

“One day Chip Roy and I were talking on the House floor and we were both expressing our disgust,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, told NewsNation Friday, speaking of GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.

“And we said, you know, this ought to not be legal.”

Spanberger cited multiple instances of elected officials who profited from their positions by making stock trades after receiving privileged information.

More than two dozen members of Congress beat the stock market in 2022 despite the dismal economy, according to a January report, and in 2020, Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and others dumped stocks just before the coronavirus pandemic tanked the economy — then bought shares in companies that boomed during the COVID-19 lockdown.

“Ultimately, members of Congress bought stocks in Clorox and in Zoom and in various different pharmaceutical companies,” Spanberger said.

She and Roy have co-sponsored the Trust in Congress Act, which would force members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependents to put their assets into a blind trust.

The bill has been repeatedly stalled in committee since the duo first introduced it in 2020 — but it’s found a Republican champion in the Senate, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

“The truth is that a lot of the information that members of Congress get isn’t technically insider information,” Hawley said. “Yet it’s still really beneficial if you want to try and make a buck on the stock market.”