“After nearly four years of the most corrupt president in American history and with U.S. senators brazenly trading stocks to profit off a raging pandemic, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act is more urgent than ever,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.
The bill’s most timely proposal is its proposed ban on stock trading. Members of Congress are allowed to buy and sell individual stocks with few restrictions, and this year, lawmakers including Loeffler, former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and a number of House members and aides were subject to scrutiny after trading stock in companies that are intimately involved in the coronavirus and its economic fallout, at times when Congress was receiving briefings and other frequent updates on the virus.
Perdue, too, became the subject of media reports for his prolific trading, which amounted to 2,956 trades during his first term as senator.
The endemic stock trading on Capitol Hill has led many watchdogs to call for a change in the law. Congress has made few steps towards doing so: A major government reform bill that was one of the first issues taken up by the House in 2018 did not address stock trading.