Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) just bought some GE Aerospace stock.
GE Aerospace makes jet engines for the U.S. military.
Senator Capito sits on the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee where she votes on various defense spending bills.
(Senator Capito did not return calls seeking comment for this article.)
The reason we know Senator Capito bought the stock is because of a law passed in 2012 – the STOCK Act – which requires disclosure of stock trades and prohibits insider trading on non public information.
The law is weak and its insider trading ban has never been enforced, as far as we know.
There have been bipartisan calls in Congress that would prohibit members of Congress from owning and trading stocks – but those efforts have gone nowhere.
Why? Because members of Congress love making money – by trading stocks.
A September 2022 New York Times analysis found that thirteen members of Congress “reported that they or immediate family members had bought or sold shares of companies that were under investigation by their committees.”
The Times report showed that “44 of the 50 members of Congress who were most active in the markets bought or sold securities in companies over which their committee assignments could give them some degree of knowledge or influence.”
And it’s a bipartisan lovefest with the market.
Perhaps the most prolific trader in Congress is former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Her and her husband have made millions on stock trading while she’s been in office. Famously, the Pelosis bought over $1 million in Nvidia call options just one week before the congressional vote on providing subsidies to the chip manufacturing industry. No problem there.
Stock traders are so enamored with Pelosi’s trades that one stock trading company – Autopilot – whose motto is – Invest Like a Politician – has a feature called The Pelosi Tracker.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) is leading the bipartisan push to prohibit members of Congress from owning or trading stock.
In 2023, Senator Hawley reintroduced his bill to ban lawmakers from stock trading. At the time, he was calling it The Pelosi act – The Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act. The bill would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from holding or trading individual stocks. The bill will require members found in violation to return their profits to American taxpayers.
“For too long, politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system they write the rules for, turning profits for themselves at the expense of the American people,” Hawley said at the time. “As members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives are tasked with providing oversight of the same companies they invest in, yet they continually buy and sell stocks, outperforming the market time and again. While Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other, hardworking Americans pay the price. The solution is clear: we must immediately and permanently ban all members of Congress from trading stocks.”