Ban members of Congress from trading stock

Our political parties don’t agree on much, but bipartisan support appears to be growing for banning members of Congress from stock trading. This comes on the heels of some questionable investment decisions by lawmakers during the pandemic. Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina was the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who had access to private Coronavirus briefings. He sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock. That was in February of last year, just before the virus spiked in the U.S., and before it was even labeled a pandemic. Maybe he is just a savvy investor. Or maybe he used insider information unavailable to the rest of us to make himself even richer. Either way, it isn’t a good look, and could be prevented by passing a law banning stock trading while holding public office. There is a current law called the STOCK Act, with stands for Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge, which prevents members of Congress from stock trading based on non-public information. Since it was adopted 10 years ago, not a single lawmaker has been sanctioned as a result of the STOCK Act. Congress should pass new laws banning stock trading to show that they are in Washington to work for the American people, not to line their pockets.