https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how- congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law
The legislative process on Capitol Hill is often slow and grinding. There are committee hearings, filibuster threats and hours of floor debate. But sometimes, when Congress really wants to get something done, it can move blindingly fast.
That's what happened when Congress moved to undo large parts of a popular law known as the STOCK Act last week.
A year ago, President Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act into law at a celebratory ceremony attended by a bipartisan cast of lawmakers.
"I want to thank all the members of Congress who came together and worked
to get this done," he said.
The law wouldn't just outlaw trading on nonpublic information by members
of Congress, the executive branch and their staffs. It would greatly
expand financial disclosures and make all of the data searchable so
insider trading and conflicts of interest would be easier to detect.
But on Monday, when the president signed a bill reversing big pieces of
the law, the emailed announcement was one sentence long. There was no fanfare last week either, when the Senate and then the House passed the
bill in largely empty chambers using a fast-track procedure known as unanimous consent.
In the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., shepherded the bill through. It was Friday afternoon at 12:52. Many members had already left
for the weekend or were on their way out. The whole process took only 30 seconds. There was no debate.
"There weren't too many members of Congress who were aware of this legislation," says Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for
Public Citizen. "And I suspect very, very few understood what a sweeping radical change it is to the STOCK Act."
Records In The Basement
To understand how the law changed, I asked Holman to meet me in the
basement of the Cannon House Office Building.
"This is where the public records are kept, for those who can handle traveling to Washington, D.C.," Holman explained.
That's right. If you want to look up the financial disclosure forms filed
by high-level congressional staffers — say, to find out whether they've been using the privileges of their positions to make well-timed stock
trades — you have to come to this office.
Holman showed me how it works. You have to enter your name and address
into a computer, and then you can search. But you have to know the name of the person you are searching for. If he or she has filed a financial disclosure form, it will come up as a PDF, which you can print at a cost
of 10 cents a page.
"The database itself is almost meaningless," says Holman. He says the only option for those who want to get a comprehensive look at what some 2,900 staffers have filed is to review the cases one by one. "And that's just
too big a job for anybody to do."
The STOCK Act was supposed to make this task significantly easier. Records for members of Congress, the executive branch and their staffs were
supposed to be posted online in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.
If you wanted to see who traded health care stock just before a committee acted on a health care bill, it would be easy. No trips to the basement required.
But there were concerns, especially among the 28,000 executive branch
staff who would be required to post their financial disclosures online.
Going Too Far?
"There were particular concerns about risks for those who either travel overseas on government business or work overseas," says Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, who represents many of
those executive branch employees.
An independent study said there were also risks of identity theft, which
she says the new law helps avoid.
"What has been eliminated now is the ability of people to go phishing, if you will," she says.
The White House cited the independent report in explaining why the
president signed the bill. And a spokesman for Cantor said the House and Senate were simply following recommendations of the study. But Lisa Rosenberg, a lobbyist for the Sunlight Foundation, which advocated for the STOCK Act, says Congress went too far.
"It's really shocking that they used basically the situation of questions about whether some language in the bill was overbroad to just gut the bill — to gut the transparency measures that apply to themselves," she says.
Still, two major elements of the law remain. Insider trading is illegal, even for members of Congress and the executive branch. And for those who
are covered by the now-narrower law, disclosures of large stock trades are required within 45 days. It will just be harder to get to them.
--
"LOCKDOWN", left-wing COVID fearmongering. 95% of COVID infections
recover with no after effects.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019. Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in" ballots. Report voter fraud: sf.n...@mail.house.gov
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how- congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law
The legislative process on Capitol Hill is often slow and grinding. There are committee hearings, filibuster threats and hours of floor debate. But sometimes, when Congress really wants to get something done, it can move blindingly fast.
That's what happened when Congress moved to undo large parts of a popular law known as the STOCK Act last week.
A year ago, President Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act into law at a celebratory ceremony attended by a bipartisan cast of lawmakers.
"I want to thank all the members of Congress who came together and worked
to get this done," he said.
The law wouldn't just outlaw trading on nonpublic information by members
of Congress, the executive branch and their staffs. It would greatly
expand financial disclosures and make all of the data searchable so
insider trading and conflicts of interest would be easier to detect.
But on Monday, when the president signed a bill reversing big pieces of
the law, the emailed announcement was one sentence long. There was no fanfare last week either, when the Senate and then the House passed the
bill in largely empty chambers using a fast-track procedure known as unanimous consent.
In the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., shepherded the bill through. It was Friday afternoon at 12:52. Many members had already left
for the weekend or were on their way out. The whole process took only 30 seconds. There was no debate.
"There weren't too many members of Congress who were aware of this legislation," says Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for
Public Citizen. "And I suspect very, very few understood what a sweeping radical change it is to the STOCK Act."
Records In The Basement
To understand how the law changed, I asked Holman to meet me in the
basement of the Cannon House Office Building.
"This is where the public records are kept, for those who can handle traveling to Washington, D.C.," Holman explained.
That's right. If you want to look up the financial disclosure forms filed
by high-level congressional staffers — say, to find out whether they've been using the privileges of their positions to make well-timed stock
trades — you have to come to this office.
Holman showed me how it works. You have to enter your name and address
into a computer, and then you can search. But you have to know the name of the person you are searching for. If he or she has filed a financial disclosure form, it will come up as a PDF, which you can print at a cost
of 10 cents a page.
"The database itself is almost meaningless," says Holman. He says the only option for those who want to get a comprehensive look at what some 2,900 staffers have filed is to review the cases one by one. "And that's just
too big a job for anybody to do."
The STOCK Act was supposed to make this task significantly easier. Records for members of Congress, the executive branch and their staffs were
supposed to be posted online in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.
If you wanted to see who traded health care stock just before a committee acted on a health care bill, it would be easy. No trips to the basement required.
But there were concerns, especially among the 28,000 executive branch
staff who would be required to post their financial disclosures online.
Going Too Far?
"There were particular concerns about risks for those who either travel overseas on government business or work overseas," says Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, who represents many of
those executive branch employees.
An independent study said there were also risks of identity theft, which
she says the new law helps avoid.
"What has been eliminated now is the ability of people to go phishing, if you will," she says.
The White House cited the independent report in explaining why the
president signed the bill. And a spokesman for Cantor said the House and Senate were simply following recommendations of the study. But Lisa Rosenberg, a lobbyist for the Sunlight Foundation, which advocated for the STOCK Act, says Congress went too far.
"It's really shocking that they used basically the situation of questions about whether some language in the bill was overbroad to just gut the bill — to gut the transparency measures that apply to themselves," she says.
Still, two major elements of the law remain. Insider trading is illegal, even for members of Congress and the executive branch. And for those who
are covered by the now-narrower law, disclosures of large stock trades are required within 45 days. It will just be harder to get to them.
--
"LOCKDOWN", left-wing COVID fearmongering. 95% of COVID infections
recover with no after effects.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019. Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in" ballots. Report voter fraud: sf.n...@mail.house.gov
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how- congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law
The legislative process on Capitol Hill is often slow and grinding. There are committee hearings, filibuster threats and hours of floor debate. But sometimes, when Congress really wants to get something done, it can move blindingly fast.
That's what happened when Congress moved to undo large parts of a popular law known as the STOCK Act last week.
A year ago, President Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act into law at a celebratory ceremony attended by a bipartisan cast of lawmakers.
"I want to thank all the members of Congress who came together and worked
to get this done," he said.
The law wouldn't just outlaw trading on nonpublic information by members
of Congress, the executive branch and their staffs. It would greatly
expand financial disclosures and make all of the data searchable so
insider trading and conflicts of interest would be easier to detect.
But on Monday, when the president signed a bill reversing big pieces of
the law, the emailed announcement was one sentence long. There was no fanfare last week either, when the Senate and then the House passed the
bill in largely empty chambers using a fast-track procedure known as unanimous consent.
In the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., shepherded the bill through. It was Friday afternoon at 12:52. Many members had already left
for the weekend or were on their way out. The whole process took only 30 seconds. There was no debate.
"There weren't too many members of Congress who were aware of this legislation," says Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for
Public Citizen. "And I suspect very, very few understood what a sweeping radical change it is to the STOCK Act."
Records In The Basement
To understand how the law changed, I asked Holman to meet me in the
basement of the Cannon House Office Building.
"This is where the public records are kept, for those who can handle traveling to Washington, D.C.," Holman explained.
That's right. If you want to look up the financial disclosure forms filed
by high-level congressional staffers — say, to find out whether they've been using the privileges of their positions to make well-timed stock
trades — you have to come to this office.
Holman showed me how it works. You have to enter your name and address
into a computer, and then you can search. But you have to know the name of the person you are searching for. If he or she has filed a financial disclosure form, it will come up as a PDF, which you can print at a cost
of 10 cents a page.
"The database itself is almost meaningless," says Holman. He says the only option for those who want to get a comprehensive look at what some 2,900 staffers have filed is to review the cases one by one. "And that's just
too big a job for anybody to do."
The STOCK Act was supposed to make this task significantly easier. Records for members of Congress, the executive branch and their staffs were
supposed to be posted online in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.
If you wanted to see who traded health care stock just before a committee acted on a health care bill, it would be easy. No trips to the basement required.
But there were concerns, especially among the 28,000 executive branch
staff who would be required to post their financial disclosures online.
Going Too Far?
"There were particular concerns about risks for those who either travel overseas on government business or work overseas," says Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, who represents many of
those executive branch employees.
An independent study said there were also risks of identity theft, which
she says the new law helps avoid.
"What has been eliminated now is the ability of people to go phishing, if you will," she says.
The White House cited the independent report in explaining why the
president signed the bill. And a spokesman for Cantor said the House and Senate were simply following recommendations of the study. But Lisa Rosenberg, a lobbyist for the Sunlight Foundation, which advocated for the STOCK Act, says Congress went too far.
"It's really shocking that they used basically the situation of questions about whether some language in the bill was overbroad to just gut the bill — to gut the transparency measures that apply to themselves," she says.
Still, two major elements of the law remain. Insider trading is illegal, even for members of Congress and the executive branch. And for those who
are covered by the now-narrower law, disclosures of large stock trades are required within 45 days. It will just be harder to get to them.
--
"LOCKDOWN", left-wing COVID fearmongering. 95% of COVID infections
recover with no after effects.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019. Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in" ballots. Report voter fraud: sf.n...@mail.house.gov
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
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