If by "their" you are referring to the members of Congrss that voted for the bill and the President who signed it, the only real impact that this bill has on "their" insider trading deals is that the database on which their financial and transactional disclosures have to be made available doesn't have to be "searchable". The portions of the law that made insider trading by members of Congress etc. illegal is not impacted by this. That, more than anything, was the motivation for passing the STOCK Act, not creating a searchable data base of the financial data of thousands of career civil servants. The other aspect of the amended version of the legislation is that it relieves thousands of career government employees of having their financial information posted publicly. They still have to report their information, but its not put out on the web.
There is a reason why President Obama asked in his SOTU speech in 2012 that Congress send him a “a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress" not "a bill that makes financial disclosures by thousands of career civil servants searchable on line".
As for the claim that this was done with no consideration: The issue of the posting and searchability requirements of the STOCK Act has been under discussion for months. Congress specifically directed a non-partisan, non-profit entity, the National Academy of Public Administration to study and report back with recommendations with respect to the posting and searchability provisions. They produced a detailed, highly sourced report that made a number of recommendations, most (but not all) of which are reflected in the legislation that Congress just passed to modify those provisions of the STOCK Act. Folks may agree or disagree with some or all of the reports findings and conclusions, but if you haven't read it, that you are in no position to comment on the substance of the changes in the law that Congress made.
Any single member of the House or Senate could have stopped this amendment. None did. Why? Becuase despite the misinformation being spewed around, on balance the amendment did more good than harm.
Yesterday the president spoke of how the NRA uses intentional lies to scare people. Well, in their own way, that's what the folks responsible for this article are doing -- making it sound like the provisions on searchability repealed were the be all and end all of the STOCK Act when they were very much the tail of the legsilation, not the dog... the dog (and much of the tail) remain intact even after these changes. Its also intentional distortion when those responsible for this article make it sound like the entire bill and/or the obligation to disclose information by members of Congress and Executive branch officials has been repealed.
I used to think that folks here stood with career civil servants and union members. Its beginning to appear that has changed.
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