Stop Insider Trading Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, what we are considering here today is a remarkable display of cynicism, even for this institution, even for this Republican leadership team.

The American people are desperate for us to clean up the culture of corruption that pervades Washington. Americans see their elected leaders on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue enriching themselves, some to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. Headline after headline: Members of Congress tipping off insiders to reap huge payouts from prediction markets, and Members of Congress buying up private stocks just days before Pentagon announcements that will balloon their financial portfolios.

What are Speaker Johnson and House Republicans doing about this? They are pretending here on the floor today to address the issue. They are pushing the so-called Stop Insider Trading Act, a name meant entirely to trick the American people.

This bill, quite simply, is a sham. The bill allows Members of the Congress to continue owning and trading stocks. That is right. The so- called Stop Insider Trading Act actually allows Members of Congress to own and trade stocks.

Even this half measure--or should I say quarter measure--goes too far for Republican leadership. How do we know? What is the tell? How do we know that the Republican posturing is all performative and that Republicans do not want a stock trading bill ban to become law? They have added a poison pill to this bill. They have added provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with stock trading and everything to do with their obsession with the 2020 election.

That is right, the SAVE America Act is back, yet again. The American people keep cutting the head off this bill, flooding phone lines of their Members and Senators, demanding we block this anti-voter bill. So far, their voices are being heard. The resistance is working.

Like the Hydra, these heads keep growing back: the SAVE Act, the SAVE Act again, the SAVE America Act. They have attached it to CRs, continuing resolutions. They attach it to a spending bill, funding the State Department and other completely unrelated agencies.

The President tried to force it on the American people through illegal executive orders blocked by the courts. Now, Republicans come limping back from a losing fight. Sometimes you should just stop.

Let's acknowledge the reality of what we are doing here: Republicans have corrupted their so-called stock trading bill with a decaying piece of the SAVE America Act corpse.

The bill we are considering today would force voters in America to surrender photocopies of their photo IDs in their mail ballot envelopes. This isn't just a voter ID bill. It is a bill to destroy vote by mail, something the President routinely rails against, despite the fact that the President routinely uses mail-in voting himself, the kind of double standard Americans have come to particularly enjoy from this President.

It is a bill that would dispatch millions of American voters to Kinko's--some of us are old enough to remember Kinko's; I guess it is now FedEx--or Staples or the public library to scan and print their IDs, to shove those IDs into their mail ballots, risking their constitutional right to a secret ballot if not packaged properly, to send their ID copies off to election offices in the hopes that the ballot will be counted, that the ballot won't be discarded on the counting room floor.

Some might ask why these ballots would be at risk of being thrown out. It is because the bill would explicitly exclude forms of voter ID that millions of Americans are accustomed to using today.

You use your student ID, your ballot will be thrown out. Your concealed carry permit: Ballot thrown out. Your employer ID: Ballot thrown out. Your Tribal ID without an expiration date on it, which is common on Tribal IDs, you get the picture: Ballot thrown out. I could go on and on.

Those sitting at home watching this might think they know that Washington, D.C., is a dysfunctional place, but they can't be that irrational, can they? Surely, election officials and voters would have time to prepare for this seismic shift in American elections, right?

Sorry to say, they would be overestimating how much House Republicans care about voters, about election officials, about elections themselves because this bill would take effect in 90 days.

When is 90 days from today? Well, it is October 20, 2026, 2 weeks before the midterm elections. That is right, Republicans are trying to force a massive change to American voting law--eradicating mail voting as we know it--right in the middle of the final month of an election, 2 weeks before election day.

We still have a system where the time, manner, and places of elections are run by State legislatures, State officials. By October 20, those State officials, State legislatures, will have already mailed out millions of ballots to voters. Voters will have already returned some of these ballots.

What are election officials to do? Count the ballots cast with student IDs on October 19 and shred the ones that arrive after that, on October 20? Is that what they are going to do? Who is going to train election officials about what IDs to accept, what to do with mail ballots missing photocopies, and when will they do it?

There will be chaos, complete shambles. This bill is plain absurdity, written in ink printed in the Congressional Record.

Lest we forget, confusion is the point, chaos is the point. Republicans know that they will lose in November. They know that people strongly, strongly object to their handling of the economy, the war in Iran, and the immigration fiasco, which has resulted in the death of American citizens. They know the verdict in November will not be kind to them and shouldn't be, so they have one hope at winning--disruption, disarray, subversion.

That is why they have redrawn congressional maps from coast to coast in the middle of this year, of this term, the middle of this decade. That is why they keep trying again and again to change the rules in the middle of the game.

If they want to force States to make massive, extreme, last-minute changes just days before the midterm elections--States forced to retrain staffs, reprint ballots and ballot envelopes, and the process-- with what time, what money?

Some might ask who is going to pay for all this. This is a seismic change. It won't be Washington, not House Republicans. They are too busy trying to pay for an unconscionable war in Iran, a war that has led to the tragic deaths of 18 American servicemembers, a war that no one asked for and certainly no Americans want.

Republicans will send American taxpayer money to the Middle East but not to local election offices. They simply don't care about them. They don't care about the price of their gas, the price of their groceries, the sanctity of their ballot. They do not care.

Again, I ask, who will pay for this? Sorry to break it to the viewers watching this, but they will. Their family, town, city, county, State, local election administrator, Republican and Democrat, are required to bear the burden of this change.

This is an unfunded mandate, plain and simple. I remember hearing for years from my Republican friends: no unfunded mandates. This is the mother of all unfunded mandates, 2 weeks before an election, costing tens of billions of dollars. They are going to get stuck with the bill.

This is a fiat from a Washington awash in corruption telling Americans how to run their elections. Do you know who else will pay for this? America's democracy.

I say again, this bill is not about voter ID. It is about ending a voter's ability to cast a free and fair ballot. For the sake of American elections, I strongly, strongly urge the House to reject this zombie bill.

Before I yield to my friend, I didn't say this in my opening comments, but it is remarkable, if we are working so hard and endeavoring to convince the American people that they can have faith in what we do as it relates to insider information and moving markets, I find it extraordinary that we would not include the President, Vice President, or members of the Cabinet or the Supreme Court in a bill to make sure that they are not participating.

In fact, this is well known, and it has been well reported: Since Inauguration Day of last year, President Trump has had more trades individually than have all the Members of the United States House and Senate. That is 535 Members, and do you know who out-traded them all combined? President Trump. He is not in this bill. He is not in it. The Vice President is not in it. The Supreme Court is not in it.

In fact, the President, Truth Social, is about to enter into selling access through an app that people will pay for that will give them information on market moves.

It is extraordinary that we would somehow suggest that we are protecting the public's interest, that we care deeply about restoring faith in Washington, when there is a hole that you can drive many semi- trucks through if we are really trying to clean up this country and restore faith with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest the gentleman from Missouri ought to read the bill before the House because everything he just said would not be cured by what he just talked about.

In fact, you may still, under this bill if it became law, and thankfully it will not, you could still own stock, Mr. Speaker.

Let's say you own Boeing stock and you happen to be on the Armed Services Committee or a Defense appropriator, Mr. Speaker, and you sort of say to Pentagon officials: Boy, I really like this equipment that Boeing is producing or Northrop Grumman if you happen to own them, or other companies, great companies, but you may own stock in the company.

There are many ways for you, Mr. Speaker, to drive up that stock price and wait as the owner of that stock to manipulate the situation until the stock price rises and then you sell it. That is a trade. That is ownership of stock. Mr. Speaker, that is the ability to influence stockholdings you have when you come to Congress.

This doesn't divest it.

The gentleman made a great speech, and I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, it doesn't have anything to do with what the bill does.

Besides, Mr. Speaker, you can have private stock. There are reports that people have purchased private stock in companies that then became public that then were sold to public companies and made windfalls here.

Mr. Speaker, you could still do that under this bill. You can engage in crypto, Mr. Speaker. You can buy commodities, and you can participate in the prediction markets.

The notion that somehow Americans should see this bill pass and relax and suddenly feel as if the people making public policy decisions in Washington suddenly won't be doing anything in their self-interest but will, instead, be doing it in the interest of the American people--it is a word I used earlier--I contend, is exactly what this is. It is a sham.

This will not fix anything, and that is what it is intended to do, to not fix anything, but to make people believe that we have addressed it. We haven't addressed anything.

That is not what this bill is.

Mr. Speaker, when you add the element of really trying to subvert this election, there is nothing that argues for this bill. This isn't even a partial way of getting it done. This is a diversion, and it is intended to get people to feel better about something when they shouldn't feel better at all.

Houlahan).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Roy, whom I have had a chance to be in a number of meetings with on this issue, about restoring faith and trust in America. Recognize, I came to Congress and sold all of the stock that my wife and I owned. At the time, as I recall--it has been many years--Microsoft, Google, Alpha, a number of technology stocks. If I had come here under this bill, should this become law, I would be able to continue to hold onto all of them. Honestly, depending on what committees I serve, I can do a great deal to make sure that my investments were guarded, that they were protected, that they were furthered.

It is not supposed to be the way this functions. That is not what we have been talking about. Holding on to stock when you are in a position to affect markets is wrong. Simply put, it is wrong. We should end it. Require the divestiture of stock by Members of Congress, the President, the Vice President, and members of the courts. That is what we should be doing.

Anything less than that, particularly when you continue to hold stock, continue to trade by selling stock, when it is appropriate for you and your portfolio, and even to be able to take dividends from stock you own and reinvest and buy more stock--that is allowed under this bill, as well.

Others have pointed out Democratic Members and recognized them. There are glaring examples here. However, to reiterate the point, this bill would not prevent insider trading. It would just trick the American people into thinking we are trying to do something about corruption when we are not.

Take one glaring example. In December of last year, a Member of the House Republican leadership purchased up to $250,000 in private shares of Elon Musk's xAI. Within days, the Department of Defense announced an expanded partnership with xAI to provide Grok AI tools. Convenient timing, no doubt. I am sure most Americans would love to have participated in such convenient timing.

This Republican Member of leadership, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, including on the subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, just happened to buy xAI stock shortly before the Department of Defense's announcement. They sure did. That is what they did.

It gets worse. Earlier this year, Elon Musk's SpaceX acquired xAI soon thereafter. SpaceX launched an initial public offering, and the value of the xAI shares this Member of Congress had acquired skyrocketed. In fact, the Member may have made as much as a 60 percent return on the Member's investment, if liquidated at the right time, potentially a $150,000 profit on a $250,000 initial investment. That is extraordinary.

Yet, this bill that the Republicans are purporting would restore trust in America would not have in any way impeded the ability of a Member to do that. If that isn't extraordinary, if that is not an indictment on what is happening here, I don't know what is.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I go back to a comment I made earlier in my opening about the timing of this bill and the effective date. Ninety days from now is October 20, 2 weeks before election day. There will be millions of ballots, mail-in ballots, absentee ballots. Several years ago, this Congress passed the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. For uniformed and overseas persons who are eligible to vote, UOCAVA ballots will already be en route to voters.

Voters will have already cast ballots, perhaps in the millions, by that time.

How are election administrators across the United States supposed to comply with this new Federal law dropped right in the middle of the final weeks of the 2026 midterm elections? It is effectively election malpractice.

It is creating discord. It will create countless questions. I don't know who is going to pay for the retraining. I don't even know how one would do the retraining. Election workers are going to be stuck, as I envision it, with envelopes which will need to have not only photocopies--by the way, I don't know where any of this information gets stored after the fact.

Is it going to be in a vault somewhere? Is a voter's driver's license or proper ID going to be kept somewhere? By the way, how will they make sure that when someone, as they will no doubt do, puts their ID in their ballot, eliminating any chance that they have secrecy of their ballot--who is managing that? The local election administrators?

They are going to train all their workers within 2 weeks of election day on a brand-new system that has never been done anywhere in this country. I went through this in the Rules Committee. Most of the IDs in most of our States, even the most conservative States in America, have broader ID requirements than this.

Student IDs are not allowed. Most States allow it. All kinds of IDs that people have, they won't be able to use them anymore. Texas won't be in compliance. Florida won't be in compliance. The Governor of Ohio just vetoed a bill like this, which effectively criticized the intent of the bill and said it wouldn't do anything for voter security.

How does this all happen? The purpose of the change is to throw election administration into disarray. I don't know how we can see it otherwise. At the very least, if you were thinking about this, you would make it effective next year or the year after to give local administrators time to prepare and probably give them some resources so they could do all manner of things necessary to comply with admittedly a bad law. But at least it would be something you could say with a straight face was serious or an attempt to be serious.

This isn't serious. This is creating discord. It is reckless. It is irresponsible and ultimately will, once again, put the question in front of American voters of: Are they really sure they should have confidence in our system? I think it is clear some people want Americans to doubt our system, which, by the way, they should have confidence in.

These election administrators, Democrats and Republicans, at the local level care deeply about their work. They see this as a sacred trust. People are getting in and voting, and there is no design to have all manner of things that they suggest happen. It is simply not true.

That is why people will look at this and will look at January 6, 2021, and will look at all these things and conclude rightly that all we want to do is create discord and subversion of this democratic system.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I will close by saying this. The bill before us is a crude combination of two completely unrelated bills--the so-called Stop Insider Trading Act and the Voter ID Act.

The Voter ID Act is, of course, already a crude reformulation of the SAVE America Act.

I have addressed both parts of the bill individually. Neither of them deserves passage. Frankly, neither of them deserves much serious debate.

The first, the so-called Stop Insider Trading Act, is not a stock trading ban. Despite what everyone has said today, it simply is not. Get the bill. Download it. Read it. It doesn't require people to sell stock that they own.

The bill is a vote to allow Members of Congress to continue to own and trade individual stocks. I don't know how to be clearer than that.

The bill would let Members of Congress keep every single share of stock they own.

The bill would allow Members to liquidate their holdings at any time, obviously when it is profitable for them. There is no divestiture required in this bill.

The bill does nothing to rein in the unprecedented, absurd, and deeply offensive corruption currently taking place in the White House. The bill is silent on the President.

I would note again that so far this year, the President has traded more securities than the entire Congress combined, all 535 Members of the House and Senate. Does anyone believe for a minute that the President has less influence on the markets than individual Members of Congress? Judge that for yourself.

Then there is the second fully distinct part of this bill: voter suppression provisions taken right from the SAVE America Act.

House Democrats support voter identification. Democrats have included responsible ID provisions in the Freedom to Vote Act and have offered amendments at committee making this point crystal clear.

The bill before us, however, would create a more restrictive regime than any currently in use in this country. It is more restrictive than Florida and more restrictive than Texas. The bill would eviscerate mail voting as we know it, forcing voters to include photocopies of their ID every time they mail a ballot.

This measure is so extreme the Republican Governor of Ohio, Governor DeWine, vetoed a similar statewide measure because it would burden voters without preventing fraud.

This bill would throw our elections into chaos, the effective date being October 20 of 2026, 90 days from today, right in the middle of this midterm election. In 90 days, tens of millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots by person and by mail. This bill would upend the November midterms, and that is exactly the point. That is exactly the goal.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this rehash again of the President's top legislative priority: the SAVE Act. I urge its defeat.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source