- Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell said he's open to banning lawmakers from trading stocks. - "We'll take a look at that kind of legislation and see what may be appropriate," he said on Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled on Tuesday that he may be open to banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
Asked by Insider at his weekly press conference whether he is supportive of the idea, McConnell pointed out that he doesn't trade individual stocks himself and advises others to do the same.
"I haven't given it any serious thought yet, I can just tell you how I operate," he said. "I don't own any individual stocks. Everything is in a mutual fund. That's what I advise members to do because I think it prevents such suggestion that you are engaged in insider trading."
"We'll take a look at that kind of legislation and see what may be appropriate," McConnell added.
Senate financial disclosures confirm that McConnell does not own individual stocks himself, though his wife, former Transportation secretary Elaine Chao, does.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday came out publicly in favor of a stock-trading ban, confirming Insider's prior reporting that he had convened a working group to hammer out a proposal that Democrats can support.
"I believe in it," Schumer told reporters in response to a question about his position. "I have asked our members to get together to try to come up with one bill. I would like to see it done."
McConnell and Schumer's comments come amid a flurry of proposals to ban lawmakers from trading stocks, which have emerged in the wake of Insider's "Conflicted Congress" investigation that found dozens of lawmakers and nearly 200 senior staffers failed to comply with the disclosure rules laid out by the anti-insider trading Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.
Two members of McConnell's caucus — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ben Sasse of Nebraska — have introduced their own bills to ban lawmakers from