Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, before the Senator from Oklahoma offers his amendment--and I will not take a great deal of time in my comments--I want to respond to some questions that many of our colleagues have raised about the reporting requirements in this bill. One of my colleagues, for example, has asked if a change in a Member's or staff's allocation in the Thrift Savings Program would be required to be reported under this bill. It would not. It is not required to be reported under the annual financial disclosure and it is not required under this bill.

A second of our colleagues has brought up a question of how would mutual funds be treated. Again, I would say that the treatment is not changed by this bill, other than the time period. Under this bill, as under the annual financial disclosure forms, qualified investment funds--those are the widely available mutual funds that are exempt from trades being disclosed--would be exempt under this bill as well.

As with our annual financial disclosures, you still list the fund and the amount of assets in categories for those funds, but you indicate that they are a qualified exempt fund and there is no requirement for trying to figure out what the trades are within that fund.

I mention these two examples because I fear there is

some misinformation about the bill that is circulating. There is a legitimate dispute over whether 30 days is too short a time, whether the 90-day period in the original bill is better, which is my own preference. But the fact is that the information that is being reported is not being changed. The issue is how often it is reported. The inquiries from my colleagues about the implications for the Thrift Savings Plan allocations and for qualified exempt investment funds, widely held mutual funds, remain the same. They are reported, the category of the investment, the amount is reported, but the individual trades within the fund are not reported.

I apologize for surprising the Senator from Connecticut with this inquiry, and hope he will forgive me for that, but I would, through the Chair, pose a question to the Senator from Connecticut, the chairman of the committee, as to whether his understanding is the same as mine with regard to the Thrift Savings Plan and qualified mutual funds?

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Ms. COLLINS. I thank my colleague and friend from Connecticut, the chairman of the committee.

Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us to pose a question through the Chair. I hope our colleagues have heard this exchange, this colloquy, which clarifies what appears to be a rather widespread misunderstanding about the reach of this bill. As I said, the 30-day issue is a different issue, a legitimate dispute as to whether that is too aggressive. We have some colleagues who think it should be a 10-day reporting period and an amendment has been filed to implement that. I personally prefer the 90 days in the original bill. I think that is more realistic. But the fact is there is a lot of misinformation and questions regarding what is reported. I appreciate the clarification from the Senator, the chairman of the committee.

At this point I yield to Senator Coburn for the next amendment.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I thought I would bring our colleagues up to date on what is going on this evening, as it is getting late. We are close, I believe, to working out an agreement for a vote on an amendment that was offered by Senator Paul earlier. It has to do with extending to executive branch officials the same kind of reporting requirement to ban insider trading that would apply to Members of Congress and their staffs. It is an amendment that enjoys the support of both managers and the principal authors of this bill.

We are trying to make sure, however, that we narrow the amendment so that it applies to top-level Federal employees and not to low-level Federal employees, who have no policy responsibilities. So we were looking at limiting it to Senate-confirmed positions. The problem with that is it brings in all of the military appointments that are Senate confirmed, so we want to make sure we exclude those individuals who are clearly not the target of the amendment.

We continue to work--the managers, the sponsors of the bill, and the sponsor of the amendment, Senator Paul--in order to refine his amendment. It is still our hope that we can reach that compromise and have a rollcall vote tonight. We will keep our colleagues informed about whether it will be possible to complete the drafting that would be needed to modify his amendment.

AMENDMENT NO. 1490

In the meantime, I want to talk very briefly about an amendment Senator Paul filed, his amendment No. 1490. This is an amendment that would require former Members of Congress to forfeit their Federal retirement benefits if they work as a lobbyist or even engage in any lobbying activity--regardless, I might say, of whether they served 40 years in this body.

I also note that the language in this amendment is extraordinarily broad. For example, the definition of remuneration includes salaries, any payment for services not otherwise identified as salary, such as consulting fees, honoraria, and paid authorship. Think about that. As I read the language, a former Member of Congress who writes a book would be in danger of forfeiting his or her pension. In other words, this is going to apply to authors. It mentions honoraria, so if a former Member of Congress gives a speech and receives $1,000 for giving that speech, that former Member is going to forfeit his or her pension--earned pension?

I don't even know that this would pass constitutional muster. But there is certainly a fairness issue, it seems to me. I don't know if the intent of the Senator from Kentucky was to draft this as broadly as he did to include and define as remuneration paid authorship. In other words, if you wrote a book--and it would not even have to be a book; what if you wrote a newspaper article or an op-ed for the Washington Post and received $250 for that? Do you forfeit the Federal pension? What if you worked in the private sector for a number of years, worked in State government for a number of years, and then worked for a few years serving the people of this country in Congress? Would you then forfeit your pension if you provided some lobbying activities? If you wrote a book? If you gave a speech for money? This is extraordinarily broad.

I see the Senate majority leader is on the floor, so I will stop discussing this amendment. I did want our colleagues to actually read the text of this amendment before we ever vote on it.

It defines remuneration not just as salary or payment for services not otherwise identified as salary, but consulting fees, honoraria, and paid authorship. In other words, if after being in Congress you wrote a book or you wrote an op-ed for which you were paid, you forfeit your Federal pension because you did some lobbying activities? This strikes me as a very sweeping amendment that does not belong on this bill.

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