Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who is a member of the House Oversight & Accountability Committee, introduced a bill to ban stock trading by members of Congress and their families. (The Stock Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act requires U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives to publicly file and disclose any securities transaction within 45 days of its occurrence.)
Quiver Quantitative, which downloads those disclosures and calculates each politician’s cumulative return from their trades, confirmed: “Burchett does not own any stock, per our portfolio tracking.”
After introducing the bill (H.R. 1908), Burchett wrote on X: “Let’s see if Congress will hold itself accountable. Any guesses as to whether this makes it to the floor?”
Fellow MAGA Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) reposted Burchett’s message and the press office of Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) replied “You can count us in.”
Derrick Evans, the former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates who pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to his participation in the January 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol, served three months in prison and was pardoned by Trump, replied to Burchett with a laughing crying emoji and wrote: “No chance it makes it to the floor.”
Note: The “highest net worth congress member” is Rep. Rick Scott (R-FL) at $548 million, the second is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) at $253 million.
There may be few in Congress willing to vote for the bill, but the idea of banning lawmakers from participating in the stock market is that rare initiative that has proponents on both sides of the aisle.
Citing remarkably broad support for the idea among all Americans, in January a group of Democrats — Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) — reintroduced the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act that would “prohibit members of Congress, spouses, and dependents from trading, selling, and owning individual financial stocks.”
The Democrats claim data show that “86 percent of Americans from both parties support banning members from trading and owning stocks, including 88 percent of Democrats, 87 percent of Republicans, and 81 percent of independents.”
Below is a photo of Burchett with the world’s richest man Elon Musk, some of the members of the House DOGE Subcommittee who do trade stocks while in office including chair Marjorie Taylor Greene ($22M); William Timmons ($22M); and Pat Fallon ($18M).