Congress Quietly Repeals Congressional Insider Trading Ban

[Quixote1818]

While Congress might be stuck in a deadlock on just about every issue imaginable, there’s one piece of legislation that both Democrats and Republicans hate unanimously: the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law passed last year designed to prevent insider trading among lawmakers and government officials by requiring them to post disclosures of their financial transactions online.

Both parties and both houses of Congress hated the disclosure portion of the law so much that it was repealed on Friday without debate—the measure was sent to the president by unanimous consent. The ordeal took about 10 seconds in the Senate and 14 seconds in the House, according to official records.

The STOCK Act would have required members of Congress, their aides, and other federal employees making more than $119,554 a year to disclose their financial dealings in an online database. It was supposed to prevent government officials from using insider knowledge about policy-making to profit from stock trades and other investments.


Read more: Congress Quietly Repeals Congressional Insider Trading Ban · NYU Local http://nyulocal.com/national/2013/04/15/congress-quietly-repeals-congressional-insider-trading-ban/#ixzz2QbNHMBso
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

[reteachinwi]

1. Something they agree on.

[defacto7]

2. But don't you trust them?

It sure makes them look like crooks... but hey, they don't care. They make the rules not us.

[kenny blankenship]

3. "Public Servants"

If we have to depend on these people to rein Wall St., check abusive transnational corporations' labor arbitrage schemes, and do something to put our own people back to work, then our future is officially 100% fucked. All they care about is securing their own spots at the trough and making the most of it while they can.

[JDPriestly]

4. Any chance Obama will veto this?

[unblock]

5. it was passed by unanimous consent, implying the votes are there to override.

the real question is, is the president willing not only to veto it, but to shine a spotlight on it order to embarrass enough congresscritters to prevent that override. or at least convince reid to require a roll call vote.

[Prophet 451]

9. He could make hay off this if he's smart

This kind of blatant abuse of power never fails to piss off the populace.

[DiverDave]

15. Piss off the populace??

When did they ever care what we think?

They will do what they want,when they want.

Sickening. we must bring them down.

[JDPriestly]

16. At this time of sequesters and cut-backs and higher taxes, that this

bill was offered, much less passed, is an insult to voters.

[DevonRex]

7. Harry Reid is the bill's sole sponsor. Unanimous consent

was obtained for passage (unchallenged reading into the books by agreement with McConnell). No way it'll get vetoed.

[alp227]

34. Call 202 456 1111 demand a veto!

I think obama has 6 days to make a decision, put he can pocket veto it by doing nothing.

He has vetoed only TWO bold while in office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_vetoes#Barack_Obama

[babylonsister]

6. So they can act in concert when it's in their best

personal interests. Not surprised. Disgusted, but not surprised.

[HiPointDem]

12. +1

[OneGrassRoot]

28. +1 n/t

[DevonRex]

8. Thanks for reporting this accurately.

Others haven't.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. Reeks with corruption.

Finally, real bipartisanship!

[arthritisR_US]

11. Leaves little doubt of why the bankers have not

been frog marched into prison....

Edited for a brain fart.

[n2doc]

13. Can't wait to see the evening news pick this one up and run with it

Oh. (crickets)

[Ligyron]

14. What about EX members of congress and their aides?

veto for show or no - that's when the ex-President will receive his payoff.

[spanone]

17. this entire congress should be jailed

[MindPilot]

21. A little quid pro quo to the private prison business.

[ProSense]

23. We need to find out why

Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren didn't object to this. All it takes is one Senator to object.

Why did this pass by unanimous consent?

[spanone]

31. why indeed.

[Generic Other]

18. They are crooks

Plain and simple.

[myrna minx]

19. What a bunchof crooks.

[bullwinkle428]

20. Bipartisanship we can believe in.

[City Lights]

22. What a fucking joke.

[woo me with science]

24. One corporate party, masquerading as two.

[Cal Carpenter]

25. Disgusting, but not surprising

The only surprise here is that it was ever passed to begin with.

[slackmaster]

26. A pox on all of their houses. The incumbency system has corrupted Congress beyond repair.

[Berlum]

27. "VETO" - The people of the United States of America

Congress has just farted in the face of America.

[ProSense]

29. More:

The Senate voted Thursday to kill broad disclosure of already public reports detailing the personal finances of public officials and employees.

The STOCK Act, which was passed by Congress a year ago, requires online posting of the personal financial disclosure statements that lawmakers and congressional candidates, the president and vice president, members of the cabinet and high-ranking congressional and executive branch staff file each year. The data is supposed to be made available in machine readable format that is to be ready to download this October.

The law's provision barring insider trading by members of Congress was left intact.

With no hearings or notice to the public or to most members of the body, the Senate voted by unanimous consent to remove both the online disclosure requirement for staff members on the Hill and in executive branch agencies and the creation of a public database containing the information within the reports. Roll Call reports that "neither the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee nor its House counterpart seemed to have specifics on what was in the works."

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/04/senate-guts-stock-act.html

<...>

The STOCK Act’s history has been one of knee-jerk reactions rather than reasoned decision-making. Yesterday’s vote proved no different, with Senators overreacting and taking a hatchet to the law when a scalpel would do.

The bill enacted last year would require already public financial disclosures of senior congressional and executive branch officials to be put online in order to prevent or root out insider trading. There were concerns that some provisions of the bill were overbroad and would put some government employees at risk. Rather than craft narrow exemptions, or even delay implementation until proper protections could be created, the Senate decided instead to exclude legislative and executive staffers from the online disclosure requirements.

The sweeping exemption goes even farther than critics of the disclosure requirements requested. For those to whom online disclosure would still apply (the president, vice president, members of Congress, congressional candidates and individuals subject to Senate confirmation) the Senate bill made electronic filing of the information optional and struck the requirement that online information be searchable, sortable and downloadable, making even the disclosures that remain in the bill tepid and relatively unusable.

Not only does the change undermine the intent of the original bill to ensure government insiders are not profiting from non-public information (if anyone thinks high level congressional staffers don’t have as much or more insider information than their bosses, they should spend some time on Capitol Hill) but it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online.

- more -

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/04/12/epic-failure-by-the-senate-on-transparency-provisions-in-stock-act/

Again, we need to find out why Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren didn't object to this. All it takes is one Senator to object.

[DarkLink]

30. Just last week, the Fed 'accidentally' gave Congress insider trading info....

"The Federal Reserve said early Wednesday that it inadvertently e-mailed the minutes of its March policy meeting a day early to some congressional staffers and trade groups."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-10/fed-releases-names-early-fomc-minutes-recipients-include-employees-goldman-barclays-

[Quixote1818]

32. kick

[librechik]

33. fucking crooks. n/t