The House’s Stop Insider Trading Act failed to pass the Senate on Monday, devolving into a partisan debate over tacking voter ID provisions onto what would otherwise be a straightforward stock trading ban.
The bill, which passed the House last week with thin bipartisan support, would bar members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from buying new stock while in office, plus require seven days’ public notice before selling any securities, along with legal and financial penalties for violations.
Republicans also slipped voter ID provisions into the bill, requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls.
Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio Republican, called it “another commonsense reform that is long overdue in Washington.”
“These safeguards ensure lawmakers and their families cannot use nonpublic information to enrich themselves, as we know has gone on in this town for many years, at the expense of the American people. But nobody did anything about it,” he said on the Senate floor. “Tonight, we have a chance to do something about it.”
But the push for a floor vote stalled almost as soon as it began, with the effort to force a quick vote collapsing under a pair of objections.
When Sen. Ashley Moody, Florida Republican, sought unanimous consent to bring the bill to an immediate vote, she dared “someone to object because the people of this country are tired of us talking about it.”
Sen. Alex Padilla, California Democrat, shut the effort down, but not without an alternative in hand.
He argued the bill was a “political gimmick” because it exempts the president and vice president — the two officials he said have the greatest ability to move markets — and pointed to reports about President Trump’s high volume of stock trades.
“To put it simply, Americans don’t like the idea of their elected leaders trading individual stocks while making decisions impacting those very companies and industries in their portfolios,” Mr. Padilla said.
Unlike the House bill, Nebraska GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts’ push on banning insider trading is a standalone Senate bill that doesn’t bundle in a voter ID requirement.
Mr. Padilla argued that attaching voter ID requirements was designed to fail, not the insider-trading concept itself.
He pointed to a different bipartisan measure as a better vehicle: the Halting Ownership and Non-Ethical Stock Transactions Act, sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, and Sen. Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat.
Even the competing alternative couldn’t break the logjam. That proposal, too, hit a wall, objected to by Sen. Bernie Moreno.
The Ohio Republican disputed the idea that voter ID and insider trading should be bundled as separate issues, framing Democratic objections as blocking both reforms at once.
“Democrats have blocked the ability to ban insider trading,” he said. “It is the classic D.C. two-step: Introduce an alternative measure that they know will never pass so they can keep the grift operation going. Be able to say: ’Oh, look, we oppose that, too, but this doesn’t go far enough.’”
Following the bill’s failure to pass, Ms. Moody called Democrats’ objections “nonsense excuses,” accusing her colleagues across the aisle of “pathetic Democrat gaslighting.”
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