WASHINGTON, D.C. — Calls to restrict members of Congress from trading individual stocks are intensifying following President Donald Trump’s recent State of the Union address. The renewed focus has highlighted divisions within the House over which legislative approach to advance, while bringing continued public scrutiny to the personal wealth and market performance of long-serving lawmakers.
Competing Legislative Proposals
The debate currently centers on two primary pieces of legislation, which differ significantly in their enforcement mechanisms:
The Stop Insider Trading Act: Introduced by House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), this bill advanced out of committee last month. It would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from purchasing new publicly traded stocks, though it allows them to retain their existing holdings. During his State of the Union address, President Trump explicitly urged Congress to pass this legislation “without delay.”
The Restore Trust in Congress Act: A bipartisan alternative sponsored by Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.). This stricter measure goes further by requiring lawmakers and their immediate families to fully divest from individual stocks, bonds, and commodities, prohibiting both the buying and holding of these assets.
Despite the President’s endorsement of Steil’s bill, the lack of a scheduled floor vote has frustrated several rank-and-file Republicans. Lawmakers such as Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) have publicly pushed for leadership to bring a ban to the floor, with Luna previously utilizing a discharge petition to try and force a vote on the Roy-Magaziner bill.
“If you have a strong bipartisan majority in Congress… and you have the president of the United States specifically referencing it in the State of the Union, why pray tell is it not put on the floor?” Fitzpatrick stated, adding that the legislation is long “overdue.”
Scrutiny on Lawmaker Portfolios
The legislative push coincides with ongoing public scrutiny over the market performance of congressional portfolios, which frequently outperform standard market indices.
A frequent focal point of this scrutiny is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). According to the 2024 Congress Trading Report published by the financial data platform Unusual Whales, the investment portfolio managed by Pelosi’s husband grew by 70.9% in 2024. This significantly outpaced the S&P 500, which returned approximately 24.9% during the same period.
Financial tracking firm Quiver Quantitative currently estimates Pelosi’s net worth at nearly $270 million. During a recent forum at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, Pelosi addressed questions about her wealth. She stated that while she was previously the highest-paid person on Capitol Hill by virtue of her role as Speaker, she “was not there for the money.”
Critics, including President Trump, have consistently pointed to Pelosi’s financial success to argue for stricter regulations, with Trump calling for a federal investigation into her trading activity last July.
Ethics and Enforcement Concerns
Advocates for a trading ban argue that the current regulations under the 2012 STOCK Act are insufficient for preventing conflicts of interest. Jaimie Erker, director of communications for the Centennial Institute, recently noted that over 100 lawmakers make an average of 10,000 trades annually, often intersecting with sectors they regulate. Critics argue that even the appearance of trading on non-public legislative knowledge damages institutional trust, particularly when the financial penalties for violating the STOCK Act’s disclosure rules are relatively minor compared to standard civilian insider trading enforcement.