Yesterday, I told you that GOP Congressional candidate supports term limits, a ban on insider stock trading by Congress members and a need for more transparency in grant funding. I asked for clarification about stock trading and the need for transparency in grant funding. His campaign sent this response:
- The current laws in place are woefully inadequate to oversee Members of Congress and their influence-peddling.
- The STOCK Act of 2012, which supposedly banned insider trading for Members of Congress, has clearly not sufficiently addressed the issue.
- The New York Times highlighted the issue in its 2022 reporting through a series of articles and noted that, “Some members of Congress have strangely good timing when it comes to stock investments…With inside knowledge about forthcoming policy changes or economic developments, the members could buy stocks shortly before they rose in price or sell them shortly before they fell.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/briefing/congress-stock-investments-profits.html)
- To further address this, Congress has introduced a number of good proposals they should pass. Two of those that I would support are the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act and the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (TRUST) in Congress Act.
- While the media and legislators are talking a lot about possible conflicts with stock trading, which is good, less attention has been paid to grant funding and possible conflicts of interests in that space.
- In 2022, it came to light that “House Dem [Congresswoman Susan Wild] Lands $1 Million for Former Client Implicated in Child Rape Case.” (https://freebeacon.com/democrats/wild-spending-house-dem-lands-1-million-for-former-client-implicated-in-child-rape-case/)
- Congress should address these types of conflicts as well and Congresswoman Wild should have been required to disclose that she was seeking this funding for a former legal client. Without such a law in place, this particular case only came to light through investigative reporting.
