Republican Rep. Rodney Davis doesn't trade stocks. But that doesn't mean he's ready to stop other members of Congress who do.

• Davis is the top Republican for the Committee on House Administration.
• The panel is scheduled to meet April 7 to debate banning lawmakers from trading stocks.

Republican Rep. Rodney Davis — who's about to have a lot of influence over members of Congress' personal finances — said he's loath to force his colleagues to stop trading stocks.

Davis, of Illinois, is the ranking Republican on the Committee on House Administration, which on Thursday will conduct a congressional hearing that will include discussions about whether Congress should ban lawmakers from buying and selling individual stocks.

"I don't want to pigeonhole myself into laying out what I think my priorities are," Davis said when asked in a recent interview whether he could support a stock trading ban.

He left a lot of room for where he'd eventually land, though, describing himself as being in the "discovery mode" on the issue and throwing out a few ideas for how to improve rules around stock trading.

One option would be to make data about members' personal finances far more accessible to the public, he said.

Under current law, the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act, members have few limits on stock trading but they have to quickly and publicly report all of their trades.

For Davis, it's that reporting requirement alone that's enough to make the five-term congressman voluntarily abstain from actively trading stocks. This way, he only has to report his finances annually, not weekly or monthly.

"It is a pain in the butt to fill out the financial disclosures if you have new investments on a regular basis," Davis said. "That type of reporting deters a lot of members like me from wanting to participate."

But that also means, Davis said, that he might not have the full picture on the issue until he hears from colleagues that do choose to actively trade stocks.

More than one in 10 members of Congress has violated the STOCK Act by failing to report stock trades on deadline, according to Insider's "Conflicted Congress" investigation, published in December.

"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.

These are big reasons why there's a renewed push to make changes to the law.

'Playground for the wealthy'?

I asked Davis what he thought about two House bills that would ban lawmakers from trading individual stocks and have them place existing holdings into a blind trust.

The blind trust arrangement would require lawmakers to cede control of their personal investments to an independent trustee. As designed, members of Congress wouldn't know what the trustees bought or sold in their name until weeks or months after the fact.

While at least 10 members of Congress have already established congressionally approved qualified blind trusts, it can be expensive and time-consuming to formalize. The process would be a significant undertaking particularly for a first-time politician running for the US House, a position that is up for re-election every two years.

Davis said he wants to dive into the specifics of what members would have to do to get a blind trust, including what price tag they'd face.

"I do not want the House of Representatives to only become a playground for the wealthy since many of the discussion points being thrown around include some costly provisions that could price out future members of Congress," he said.

If Davis decides to formally oppose a stock trading ban, it could put him at odds with the chamber's top Republican.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California is poised to become House speaker if Republicans win back the House in November, and he reportedly wanted to make promises of STOCK Act reforms a big part of the GOP platform for the midterm elections.

Davis said he hasn't talked to McCarthy directly about the matter, adding, "It doesn't mean we won't be on the same page when this hearing comes up, because we certainly will be."

True bipartisanship? It's TBD.

It's not clear how bipartisan an eventual STOCK Act reform effort will be.

Republicans and Democrats on the committee told me two versions of what happened leading up to the planning of Thursday's hearing.

Republicans insisted that they asked Democrats whether they could have members of Congress speak on panel about their experiences trading stocks, and what it was like to report their finances.

Democrats deny that Republicans ever asked.

Davis also told me that he'd been cut out of a lot of the preparation for the hearing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed Committee on House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to look at STOCK Act compliance and to consider harsher penalties for those who violate the law.

Lofgren's spokesman, Peter Whippy, said that Thursday's hearing is part of that process.

Davis said he was glad the hearing would be happening and that he hoped both parties could hammer out solutions together.

He stressed that the STOCK Act's accomplishments shouldn't be underestimated. The public has enhanced access to details about politicians' financial trades thanks to the law's requirements, he said.

Meanwhile, if members face questions from the media or elsewhere about potential conflicts of interests in the trades they make, then they should be ready to answer them, he said.

Still, Davis has considered some reforms, such as improving new-member orientation so that congressional ethics and disclosure rules are clearer. He said he was particularly concerned about freshmen members of Congress who appeared to have trouble following the rules.

Two notable examples of freshmen who have failed to properly disclose a large volume of stock trades are Rep. Pat Fallon, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican of Alabama.

Under the STOCK Act, members have 30 to 45 days after a stock trade to report when they, their financial advisor, or their spouse bought or sold stock. They must also disclose the name of the stock and list, within broad ranges, the value of any stock transaction.

If members don't report their trades on time, they're supposed to face a fine. But my Insider colleagues and I found such fines are rarely enforced in the House. Davis said he thinks the committee should take a harder look at penalties, which are supposed to start at $200 regardless of how late a member was in reporting the trades or how much their trades were worth.

In our call, Davis touted his past record on transparency when it comes to US House finances. A few years ago he was part of a working group that made it possible for the public to sort data about congressional office spending.

But the public database for searching House trades, while online, isn't sortable or searchable. And a database for reviewing financial trades of top congressional staffers isn't searchable, sortable or even online — one must physically go to the US Capitol to access it.

I asked Davis whether he'd ever tried to use the existing clunky system, and explained how difficult it had been for us reporters to cull the data for our "Conflicted Congress" investigation.

Davis sounded surprised, and said he hadn't tried to search the database to see what it was like.

"I will now that you brought it up," he said.