A House proposal to restrict stock ownership and trading by members of Congress, the president and vice president, Supreme Court justices and other high-ranking government officials is mired in Democratic in-fighting, threatening supporters' hopes for a pre-election victory.
The bill's sponsors planned to introduce the legislation on Wednesday but several House officials familiar with Democrats discussions said that any floor action on the bill almost certainly is shelved, at least for now. The lawmakers are expected to leave Washington this week until after the November election.
A spokesman for Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said late Tuesday that more details on the stock trading bill would be released as they become available.
Other officials who did not want to be identified in discussing private conversations, described deep divisions among top party leaders over details of the bill, which was not released until late Tuesday night. The Democrats in competitive races oppose parts of the legislation and don't want to take a politically hard vote just weeks before the election, the officials said. A group of senators is drafting their own legislation, but it hasn't been unveiled and the Senate doesn't have any immediate plans to take up the bill.
Other Democrats are urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants to act before the midterm elections on good governance legislation that takes aim at conflicts of interest at the highest levels of government. They said that it has the added bonus of putting Republicans on the spot by forcing a vote.
Top Democrats plan to gather Wednesday in a meeting that could decide the path forward.
The bill's trade and ownership restrictions cover commodities, futures, cryptocurrencies and other digital assets as well as stocks. Also covered are interests acquired through derivatives, including options.
The legislation would require public officials to divest current holdings or put them in a blind trust. It would tighten disclosure requirements and increase penalties for violations.
The bill would apply to the spouses and dependent children of the listed officials, as indicated by House Administration Chair Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat.
That has been a point of contention, with some attention falling on Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi. Some of his recent transactions, while legal, helped draw renewed attention to the current law governing trades that critics say should be changed. A Pelosi spokeswoman didn't respond immediately to requests for comment on the bill.
The bill's text says that the supervising ethics office for each government branch would be called on to issue regulations implementing the bill's provisions within 180 days of the bill's enactment.
In the past year Congressional leaders have been faced with increasing calls to adopt new rules governing lawmakers' financial activities. From 2019 to 2021, a New York Times analysis of disclosure forms found that almost 100 senators and representatives reported that they or an immediate family member traded a stock or other financial asset that had some overlap with issues before congressional committees on which they served.
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