-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, integrity; integrity inspires confidence, and the reverse is true. If there is a perception of lack of integrity, it undermines confidence.
We have a problem here in the Congress: 80 percent of Americans believe that we do not do a good job of separating our financial interests from the insider information that we receive as part of our jobs. And because of this perception of lack of integrity, they don't think we are doing a good job. Our approval rating is 15 percent. Clearly, Americans are not trusting this institution on this issue.
But we have an opportunity to course-correct, to help restore the integrity and, therefore, the confidence that Americans have in the U.S. Congress, and that is by passing H.R. 7008 that includes the Stop Insider Trading Act that was introduced in the House and passed, as my colleagues pointed out, with bipartisan support. I introduced the companion bill here in the Senate.
What this bill does is it says: You cannot buy stocks when you get here.
Well, why is this important? Because we have disclosure laws right now, but yet we have the problem that 80 percent of Americans think that we do a bad job of keeping our financial interests and our insider information separate.
And indeed we have seen people post on social media, for example, the stock trades of the former Speaker of the House, and it has become a legitimate trading strategy, as crazy as it sounds, because it is successful; it makes money.
We have had a situation in the past where one of the members of the Intelligence Committee sold about a million and a half dollars' worth of stock right before the stock market tanked because of COVID. Even the perception of using insider information to benefit yourself financially is undermining the confidence.
And the same could be said as well for the voter ID. Thirty-six States have voter ID. In my State of Nebraska, when I was Governor, we passed it and put it on the ballot. It passed overwhelmingly, 65 to 35, that Nebraskans wanted to have that voter ID as part of the process of elections to make sure they could trust in the integrity and have confidence.
Now, the insider trading act has real teeth to it. It says that you cannot buy stock, and if you own stock already when you come into the Congress, you can only sell it on 7 to 14 days' notice.
Why is this important? Well, to make sure that the market and anybody in the country can see that if you are going to sell your stock positions, they can all do it first. They get that information first so that if you have some sort of insider information, it is not insider anymore because the rest of the world knows.
And if you do violate the rules and you buy stock or you sell stock out of turn without giving the proper notification, significant penalties: a minimum $2,000 fine or 10 percent of the transaction costs.
So, for example, if you sold a million dollars' worth of stock, that is a $100,000 fine--plus giving up all the profits that go along with it. That has the enforcement and the teeth that require Members of this body and Members of the House to take notice.
This bill would go a long way toward restoring the integrity of this institution, restoring the confidence in this institution. And as was mentioned already, it passed bipartisan in the House. But the President has called on us to pass it and recently the Vice President when he was speaking to House Republicans.
Let's restore the faith in this institution. Let's make sure people know that we are not using our insider information to financially benefit ourselves.
Coming to Washington, DC, to serve our communities is a privilege. We do it for public service. It is not to be a profit center for people who are coming.
So let's make sure there is no perception possible by passing H.R. 7008.
7008, which was received from the House; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, what we were just attempting to do was to pass it with unanimous consent. That means all 100 Senators agree that we can move forward on H.R. 7008, which includes the Stop Insider Trading Act and the voter ID. And as I mentioned in my opening remarks, it is about integrity. Integrity inspires confidence.
Eighty percent of Americans don't believe we separate our inside information from our financial interests, and therefore we have a 15 percent approval rating. It is the lack of confidence in what we are doing, about how we are handling this, that is creating those low ratings.
So we have an opportunity to be able to address that with the Stop Insider Trading Act and the voter ID, to restore that integrity and, therefore, that confidence.
I certainly understand if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't wish to do that unanimously; that, for whatever reason, somebody objects going forward, as my colleague from California has. I offer an alternative that let's schedule a vote.
7008 and vote on the passage of the bill at a 60-vote affirmative threshold; further, that if the bill is passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source