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Floor Speech

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Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 7008, a bill that contains two commonsense reforms. These are pretty easy-- banning members of Congress from purchasing stocks while in office and requiring a photo ID to vote. People have said that they want us to do this. I have heard it for years around here. It hasn't happened. Now it is time to happen. Tonight, we have an opportunity to do it.

Both policies are overwhelmingly supported by Americans. If you want to listen to the American people, do these two things. Mr. President, 86 percent of Americans support banning Members of Congress from purchasing stocks while in office, and 83 percent of Americans support showing a photo ID to vote.

It has been 7 days since I last stood in this Chamber to speak about photo ID, and I am back to do it again because it is an important policy. I want to reiterate a point: Photo ID doesn't just protect the integrity of our elections; it makes our elections work better.

If election integrity isn't reason enough to support photo ID, consider what it would mean to election administration. We have seen this in States like California, where it took them over a week to count votes in recent elections. Elections officials shouldn't be spending time day after day after day going through ballots to see if this signature matches this signature. It takes too long. It is an ineffective way of determining the identification of an individual when many, many States--36 of them--have figured out a very efficient way to do this. It is called photo ID. It is something that everyone has. It is an efficient way to do it. It doesn't drag out the process. It doesn't force elections officials to become handwriting experts to figure it out.

I mean, we used to do this in the 1800s before we had methods of determining someone's identity. You had to rely on a signature. But this is 2026, for crying out loud. Everyone has a photo ID. It is an easy way to do it, it is far simpler, and it will make our elections run more simply and effectively.

Americans use a photo ID every single day. There is no reason they can't use it to vote. As a matter of fact, in Ohio, we did this. We have had photo ID for years. We had a mandate in the recent Presidential election to use a photo ID. It didn't suppress the vote. Actually, we had one of the highest voter turnouts in the history of our State.

Don't give me the baloney that somehow this is going to discriminate against somebody and tell them it will make it harder for them to vote. We have evidence to the contrary. We know photo ID is common sense.

Now let's move on to the other provision of this bill--legislation that includes stopping insider trading. It is called the Stop Insider Trading Act. It is another commonsense reform that is long overdue in Washington. People have been talking about it for years, did nothing about it. Tonight, we are trying to do something about it.

The bill prohibits Members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from purchasing new securities in publicly traded companies or similar financial instruments while they serve in Congress. It requires at least 7 days' public notice before anyone can sell any of these securities. It imposes significant legal and financial penalties for violators.

These safeguards ensure lawmakers and their families cannot use nonpublic information to enrich themselves, as we know has gone on in this town for many years, at the expense of the American people. But nobody did anything about it. Tonight, we have a chance to do something about it.

I want to commend one of our colleagues, Senator Pete Ricketts from Nebraska. Pete has led on the Senate side of this conversation on banning the insider trading. Senator Ricketts deserves credit for all of his work, and I am proud to be an original cosponsor of his Senate version of the legislation. I urge my colleagues to support its swift passage.

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