Providing for Consideration of H.R. Insider Trading Prohibition Act, and Relating to Consideration of H. Con. Res. Directing the President Pursuant to Section 5(C) of the War Powers Resolution to Remove United States Armed Forces From Hostilities in the Syrian Arab Republic That Have Not Been Authorized By Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me a little bit of time. I also thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for acknowledging the bipartisan quality of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the hope that this body will support the rule. The rule, in particular, obviously, made at least one, possibly two, Republican amendments in order.

I just want to reflect for one moment on what my intention was in the underlying bill.

First of all, this is a fix to a problem that we have had in American financial services law for a very long time, which is that there is no specific statute prohibiting insider trading.

Yes, we have prosecuted insider trading for a very long time using fraud provisions and other provisions of the securities law. As a result of there being no explicit prohibition on insider trading, much of the law that has grown up around this is court-made law.

I know I speak for everyone in this Chamber when I say we are here to make the laws of the land and, hopefully, guard that job jealously.

This is a good fix, but, to me, it was important how it was done. The Senate is controlled by the Republican Party. The House is controlled by the Democratic Party.

It was very important to me to get Republican support for this bill, number one, because I believe that that is the way that we get good, resilient legislation done and, number two, because it afforded me the opportunity to work very closely with people like Ranking Member McHenry and my Republican colleagues on the Financial Services Committee in a larger effort to build the trust and to build the relationships that, hopefully, will open the aperture for us doing more of these bipartisan things.

We do two big things around here: We stand by the values that our parties represent, but, at the end of the day, we try to come together to get something done. Honestly, in the years I have been here, we have done way too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

I really am very pleased with the way this bill has turned out. I think it has a shot of becoming law if we can get the Senate to move on it. I am delighted by the bipartisan support it has received.

Mr. Speaker, I would just close by again thanking my Republican colleagues, Mr. Perlmutter from Colorado, and hope that this body will support this rule.

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