STOP INSIDER TRADING ACT

On 2026-09-30, Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) delivered a floor speech titled "STOP INSIDER TRADING ACT" in the Senate.

STOP INSIDER TRADING ACT

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 155 (Wednesday, September 30, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 155 (Wednesday, September 30, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S5191] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] STOP INSIDER TRADING ACT Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on stock trading, only Senate Republicans would dare call a bill that permits Members of Congress to continue to own, sell, and in some instances buy stocks a stock trading ban. They can't be serious. The Republican bill is a permission slip for corruption, not a stock trading ban. There has been a real bipartisan effort to ban Members of Congress from trading stocks and profiting off their insider information. I have supported those efforts for years. Last year, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced a strong bipartisan bill that would actually ban stocks, not pretend to do so. Senate Republicans didn't want it. The Senate GOP let their counterparts in the House take out all of the ban's teeth and fill it with poison pills so it could never pass. This bill has no reform, no accountability, no substance. Republicans want to explicitly allow Members to continue trading stocks in privately held companies, including in companies the Members oversee; a formula for disaster and corruption. That is as clear a conflict of interest as one can imagine. Under the Republican bill, Members would still get to own and sell stocks, and most importantly, this bill doesn't do anything--anything--to stop Donald Trump from trading stocks. I guess Republicans forgot that Trump has made nearly 30,000 stock trades in the past year and raked in billions--more than all of Congress combined. Democrats have offered multiple bills that would close all these loopholes. Republicans have done nothing to stop corruption; not in the White House, not in Congress, nowhere. The Republican toothless stock trading bill is as ineffective as a screen door on a submarine. Let's be clear: They don't even want it to pass. They designed the bill to fail. They loaded their legislation with poison pills that they knew would make this bill dead on arrival. They are even afraid of this wet noodle, weak milquetoast bill. The voting restrictions in this bill and the voting restrictions that they added as a poison pill are more extreme than any law in any State. It would make voting more difficult in every State than it is now. They are some of the most twisted, radical schemes Trump has ever dreamed up to rig our election. Republicans know no one wants these provisions, so they included them to kill their own bill. This hollow bill isn't a stock trading ban; it is Republicans' last-ditch effort to save face. If Republicans' closing pitch is a bill that would let them continue to profit off their office and allow Trump to rig the election, that is their problem. Americans don't buy it. ____________________