Dozens of members of Congress have signed onto an effort to force a House vote on a bipartisan bill to ban lawmakers from trading stocks.
It’s increasingly likely that the effort will fail.
The reason? Top Democrats are now insisting that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance also be included in the ban — a move that will likely dampen GOP support for the idea.
It’s something of a repeat of what happened in July in the Senate, when Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri struck a deal with Democrats to advance a stock trading ban that would include Trump and Vance.
That move drew the ire of some Republicans who’ve previously supported banning stock trading in Congress, along with Trump himself, who went on to savage Hawley as “second-tier” in a Truth Social post.
Democrats are now putting forth their own stock trading ban proposal to compete with the existing bipartisan bill. Republicans are also planning to roll out their own plan early next year.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of policy and government affairs at the Project On Government Oversight, had been working with lawmakers on the bipartisan bill. He told Business Insider that Democrats’ maneuver would significantly lower the likelihood that a stock trading ban gets passed this Congress.
“I think we had a real path, and I think intentionally, this effort from Democratic leadership has really undercut that path,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. “Everyone’s going to be basically retreating into their partisan corners now.”
‘I don’t think you should go down the discharge petition route’
Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of House members who’ve been working on legislation to ban stock trading for years came together and introduced the Restore Trust in Congress Act, which would force lawmakers to sell off their individual stock holdings within 180 days after the bill’s enactment.
That group was led by Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island and Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and included several other lawmakers who’ve been outspoken for a stock trading ban, such as Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
In December, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida moved to force a vote on that bill by filing what’s known as a “discharge petition.”
That measure, which lawmakers have deployed with increasing success in recent weeks, forces the House to a vote on a bill if 218 lawmakers sign on — even if the speaker is opposed.
As of publication, 15 Republicans and 59 Democrats have signed onto Luna’s discharge petition.
There are some issues with Luna’s effort. Democrats have complained that Luna’s resolution can’t be amended, and she moved to introduce the measure before other stock trading ban proponents were ready.
“I appreciate that Rep. Luna supports our bill,” Magaziner said earlier this month. “She jumped the gun a bit.”
Additionally, Roy — the chief GOP cosponsor of the bill — has not signed onto the discharge petition, saying that for now, he prefers to continue working with the speaker on a solution.
“As someone that tries to work through regular order, I don’t think you should go down the discharge petition route,” Roy said. “I think this is a dangerous road to go down.”
Johnson voiced support for a stock trading ban earlier this year, but said more recently that he was concerned a full ban would hurt his party’s ability to recruit candidates.
Luna said on X that Johnson has agreed to introduce a bill on the issue in the new year, though the details remain unclear.
Dueling stock trading ban proposals
After several lawmakers traded stocks around a dip in the market spurred by Trump’s April tariff rollout, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries quickly became the most vocal congressional leader in pushing for a stock trading ban.
But after Luna kicked off her discharge petition effort, Jeffries and other Democrats began to insist that the president and vice president be included as well, pointing to the fact that the president exercises control over regulatory agencies and has access to more nonpublic information than members of Congress.
“There is zero justification and rationale for allowing a president of any party, or a vice president of any party, to be able to engage in stock trading while they have the awesome power of the presidency, vice presidency, and executive branch in their hands,” Jeffries said at a press conference last week.
At the request of Democratic leadership, Magaziner introduced a new stock trading ban bill last week that includes the president and vice president, and he plans to file a new discharge petition on that bill soon — though he said in a statement that he would “also continue to support and advocate for” Luna’s discharge petition.
As of publication, no Republicans have signed onto the new bill.
Hedtler-Gaudette said he believed that the expanded bill was part of an effort to kill the effort entirely.
“I think there is a significant contingent of the caucus on the Democratic side, and the conference on the Republican side, who on the substance and the merits, do not want to ban stock trading in Congress,” Hedlter-Gaudette said. “So they’ll use whatever kind of rhetorical kind of argument is closest to hand to justify.”
Asked to respond to that charge, a senior Democratic aide said that Luna’s discharge petition was “unsound” and that the fact that the unamendable nature of her petition “would leave critical flaws in place and the calls for real accountability across government unanswered.”
One House Democrat who signed the discharge petition, granted anonymity to allow them to be candid, told Business Insider that they understood both the practical and political aspects of leadership’s position.
“Going after, like, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s $10,000 transactions while Donald Trump is making millions of dollars off of cryptocurrency is like going after parking tickets when you have people committing murder,” the person said. “If I’m leadership, I’m thinking, what? No, there’s not a moral equivalence between what’s going on in the Congress and Donald Trump. He is uniquely and utterly corrupt, and that needs to be the focus of the messaging for the midterms.”
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