Dear John,
Another day, another Congressional stock trading scandal.
This time, four senators (or their families) bought stock in Artificial Intelligence (AI) within a few days of high-profile Senate hearings considering its deregulation. Once again, as usual, lawmakers with the ultimate insider access were trading stocks in the very industries they regulate.
Three of the senators — Shelley Moore Capito, Jerry Moran, and John Fetterman — sit on the Commerce Committee, which met with Google executives in May. Each disclosed purchases of up to $75,000 worth of Google, made within a week of the hearing. The fourth senator, John Boozman, bought Google, Nvidia, Meta, and Amazon in the same month.
How can the game be fair if the referees are betting on it?
Americans are catching on, and we’re not happy about it. According to a 2023 University of Maryland study, 86% of Americans oppose lawmakers trading individual stocks.
Given how habitually lawmakers of both parties have their fingers in the till, it’s obvious this is a bipartisan problem that requires a bipartisan solution. It’s the rare issue where both progressive Democrats and MAGA Republicans agree — it's time to fix it.
In January, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick reintroduced the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act to prohibit Congress members from trading individual stocks. Now, a larger bipartisan group with competing bills, including AOC and Fitzpatrick, is working together to create a consensus.
Send Congress a direct message: Whether it’s AOC and Fitzpatrick’s Restoring Faith in Government Act or another bipartisan solution, it’s time to pass legislation to prohibit members of Congress and their families from trading individual stocks.
The Google hearings in May focused on the controversial provision in Trump’s Big Bill that prohibited the states from regulating AI in any way for the next ten years. Did the hearings influence the senators to buy the stocks, or did the senators’ partial ownership in the company affect their receptivity to Google’s arguments?
Ultimately, we’ll never know. But regardless of how the senators actually voted, when those senators decided to buy those Big Tech stocks instead of buying generic Index Funds, their policymaking instantly became tied to their own personal wealth.
Why would they buy the stock if they didn’t expect it to do well? By definition, buying the stock means they will have a personal stake in the company. How can we trust our elected leaders to govern for the people with this glaring conflict of interest?
Luckily, in this case, Google did not get what it wanted, and states will still be able to regulate AI over the next decade. But multiply these conflicts of interest across all the lawmakers who buy stocks, and all the lobbyists they hear from, and all the bills they vote on, and no wonder Congress is seen as utterly corrupt.
This is about more than policy. It’s about trust, fairness, and restoring integrity to a system that’s too often rigged. As long as lawmakers are allowed to profit from insider knowledge, the perception — and reality — of corruption will persist.
Tell Congress: Pass bipartisan legislation to stop the insider stock trading and restore trust in our representative government now.
Thank you for making public office about serving the public, not a politician’s personal stock portfolio.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
