Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois violated a conflicts-of-interest law with late stock-trade disclosures. His office blames a missed mouse click.

• A congressman from the Chicago suburbs was about two months late in disclosing six-figures in stock transactions.
• Congress is debating whether to ban lawmakers and their spouses from trading stocks.

Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois violated a federal conflicts-of-interest law by disclosing two personal stock trades about two months past a federal deadline, according to financial records reviewed by Insider.

Schneider said he sold between $50,001 and $100,000 worth of stock in pet insurance company Trupanion Inc. on December 10. On the same day, he donated between $50,001 to $100,000 of Trupanion Inc. stock that he jointly owned with his wife, Julie Dann, to an unnamed charity.

Trupanion stock traded for as much as $155.34 per share that day, near an all-time high. It's steadily decreased in value ever since, trading between $70 and $95 per share in recent days.

But the four-term congressman, whose district includes many northern Chicago suburbs, didn't disclose his December transactions to Congress until March 17 — well after a 45-day disclosure deadline mandated by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, commonly known as the STOCK Act.

Congress passed the STOCK Act a decade ago in an attempt to defend against conflicts of interests among its members and provide the public greater insight into how lawmakers invest their personal wealth.

"Representative Schneider inadvertently did not hit the 'submit' button when entering a stock transaction in December," spokesperson Maggie Harden told Insider in a statement. "He discovered the error last week and immediately submitted the data and paid the associated late fee. The mistake has now been fully resolved."

The standard fine for a late financial disclosure is $200. But the Committee on House Ethics, which administers such fines, does not make public members of Congress' payments — or non-payments. Harden declined to volunteer how much Schneider paid and did not respond to a request to provide proof of payment.

Harden did not answer questions about what charity Schneider donated his shares to. Schneider's wife, Julie Dann, is president of the Charles and Audrey Dann Charitable Foundation, a charity that exists to support the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, according to the charity's most recent federal tax return.

Schneider's late disclosures come at a time when Congress is debating whether to ban federal lawmakers, and potentially their immediate family members, from trading individual stocks.

A Committee on House Administration hearing on the matter — delayed because Chairperson Zoe Lofgren contracted COVID-19 — is imminent, and dozens of lawmakers have sponsored or co-sponsored several similar stock-ban bills.

Lawmakers' interest in pursuing stock trading reforms has deepened of late after Insider's "Conflicted Congress" project in December found that dozens of lawmakers, and at least 182 senior congressional staffers, had failed to comply with the reporting requirements of the STOCK Act.

In addition to Schneider, Insider in March alone has found that Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, and Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas each violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions.

"Conflicted Congress" also found numerous examples of conflicts of interest, including that four members of Congress or their spouses have either currently or recently invested money in Russian companies at a time when Russia has invaded Ukraine.

At least 19 members of Congress have investments in at least one of two defense contractors, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, who manufacture missiles that Western nations are shipping to Ukraine's military.

Harden did not answer a question about whether Schneider supports any of the several bills Congress is considering that would limit or ban lawmakers' stock trades.

"The fact that members of congress repeatedly fail to comply with the simple reporting requirements in the STOCK Act just shows why congressional stock trading reform is so critical," said Delaney Marsco, senior legal counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog organization. "Voters have a right to know what lawmakers' financial interests are in real time, and when one member's failure to click a button means voters don't get that information, it's a big problem. If lawmakers were not permitted to trade stock in the first place, this wouldn't continue to be an issue."