The House Voted to Ban Stock Trading. Members Keep Every Share They Own.
On July 22, 2026 the House passed H.R. 7008 by 232–198, fourteen years after the STOCK Act. It bans buying individual stocks. It does not ban selling, and it forces nobody to divest. It has sat on the Senate calendar since August 6, 2026 with no vote. The Senate’s own bill, S.1498, the HONEST Act, cleared committee in 2025 and is also waiting for floor time. Nothing has become law. Last verified: September 25, 2026.
The Current State of Play
For fourteen years the congressional stock trading ban was the most popular stalled proposal in American politics. That changed on July 22, 2026, when the House passed H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, sponsored by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), on a vote of 232 to 198 (Roll no. 280). All 218 Republicans voting, 13 Democrats and one independent voted yes.
Read what it actually does before calling it a ban. H.R. 7008 bars members, their spouses and their dependent children from buying individual stocks while in office. Selling is untouched. A member keeps every position they already hold and can exit whenever they choose, subject only to a public notice filed 7 to 14 days before the sale. There is no divestiture requirement. The penalty does have teeth: the greater of $2,000 or 10% of the investment’s value, plus any profit from the sale — against the $200 late-filing fee that has been the main enforcement mechanism since 2012.
Why did 198 members vote against it? The version the House passed was not the committee’s bill. The House rule (H.Res. 1438) swapped in a new text, Rules Committee Print 119-38, that combined the stock provisions with a federal voter-identification requirement. Most Democrats objected to that pairing. The Senate received the bill on July 23 and placed it on the Senate Legislative Calendar (Calendar No. 548) on August 6, 2026. As of September 25 the Senate has not taken it up, and it would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Meanwhile, the trading continues. According to STOCK Act disclosures tracked by GovGreed, 353 current and former members of Congress have disclosed trades. The platform has cataloged 99,546 deduplicated trade disclosures since 2012.
And these are not ordinary investors. Pulled from their Personal Financial Disclosures, the wealthiest members run into the hundreds of millions — Senator Jim Justice (~$1.3B), Rick Scott (~$480M), Nancy Pelosi (~$122M). They are the people who would have to vote yes on the bill that restricts their own stock trading. That is the conflict in one sentence.
The disconnect is still stark: polling consistently shows 86% public support for a ban, cutting across party lines. One bill has now cleared one chamber, carrying an unrelated election-law fight on its back. One Senate bill has cleared committee and waits on the calendar. Every other proposal is still in committee. Nothing has been signed into law.
Active Ban Bills
Seven bills in the 119th Congress would ban or severely restrict congressional stock trading. They span both chambers and both parties. One — H.R. 7008 — has passed the House and sits on the Senate calendar. One Senate bill, S.1498, has been reported by committee and also sits on the calendar. The rest are still in committee. Here is their current status.
| Bill Name | Sponsor | Chamber | Status | Key Provisions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop Insider Trading Act H.R.7008, 119th Congress | R Rep. Bryan Steil | House | Passed House 232–198 | Passed the House July 22, 2026 (Roll no. 280). Bans buying individual stocks by members, spouses and dependents. Selling allowed after a public notice 7–14 days in advance; no divestiture required. Penalty: greater of $2,000 or 10% of the investment’s value, plus any profit. House-passed text also carries a federal voter-ID requirement. Received in the Senate July 23; on the Senate Legislative Calendar (No. 548) since August 6, 2026. No Senate vote. |
| HONEST Act (Halting Ownership and Non-Ethical Stock Transactions) S.1498, 119th Congress | R Sen. Josh Hawley | Senate | Reported by Committee | Bipartisan cosponsors: Moreno, Ossoff, Peters, Merkley, Cortez Masto. Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs ordered it reported July 30, 2025; reported December 10, 2025 and placed on the Senate calendar (No. 294). No floor vote. Covers Members of Congress, the President and the Vice President: buying banned on enactment, selling of covered assets banned 90 days after. |
| Restore Trust in Congress Act H.R.5106, 119th Congress | R Rep. Chip Roy | House | In Committee | Introduced September 3, 2025; referred to House Administration. Bans owning or trading stocks by members, spouses and dependents. 130 cosponsors from both parties. |
| Restore Trust in Congress Act S.3649, 119th Congress | BI Sen. Ashley Moody (R) & Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) | Senate | In Committee | Introduced January 15, 2026; referred to Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. Senate companion to H.R.5106. Existing covered investments must be divested within 180 days for current members; diversified mutual funds allowed. |
| Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act S.1879, 119th Congress | D Sen. Jon Ossoff | Senate | In Committee | Introduced May 22, 2025; referred to Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. No committee action. Requires members and their immediate families to place covered assets in blind trusts. |
| ETHICS Act (Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks) H.R.4890, 119th Congress | D Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi | House | In Committee | Introduced August 5, 2025; referred to House Administration, Oversight, and Judiciary. Bars members, spouses and dependent children from trading and owning stocks. |
| End Congressional Stock Trading Act H.R.1908, 119th Congress | R Rep. Tim Burchett | House | In Committee | Introduced March 6, 2025; referred to Financial Services, Agriculture, House Administration, and Ways and Means. Prohibits stock trading and ownership by members, spouses and dependent children. |
Source: Congress.gov / GovInfo bill status records. Bill numbers and statuses reflect the 119th Congress as of September 25, 2026.
2026 status: H.R. 7008 was ordered reported by the House Administration Committee on a 7–4 vote on January 14, 2026, reported on February 3, and passed the House on July 22. The Senate received it on July 23 and placed it on its calendar on August 6; it has taken no action since. S.1498 has been on the Senate calendar since December 10, 2025 without a floor vote. No ban has been signed into law. To understand why a reform with more than 80% public support keeps stalling, follow the money: AIPAC’s spending in Congress and which countries lobby Washington map the financial forces arrayed around the very members who would have to vote yes.
History of Ban Attempts
The push to restrict congressional stock trading is not new. Every major attempt has either been watered down or stalled entirely. Here is the legislative timeline.
Arguments For a Trading Ban
The Case For a Ban
- Information asymmetry. Members receive classified briefings, sit on committees overseeing specific industries, and have advance knowledge of legislation that moves markets. GovGreed's database links congressional trades to bills affecting the same companies and sectors, so the overlap between what members trade and what they legislate can be checked trade by trade.
- Enforcement has failed. The STOCK Act's disclosure mandate has not worked. 12,766 of 99,546 disclosures (12.8%) were filed more than 45 days after the trade. The average disclosure gap is 48.8 days, meaning many trades are not public until well after any informational advantage has passed.
- Public trust. 86% of Americans support a ban. This is among the highest bipartisan support for any policy proposal. Congress trading stocks while voting on the laws that affect those stocks erodes institutional legitimacy.
The Case Against a Ban
- Property rights and personal finance. Members of Congress are citizens with the same rights to manage their finances. A ban could be seen as an unconstitutional restriction on personal property. Some constitutional scholars argue the 5th Amendment protects the right to buy and sell securities.
- Blind trusts as an alternative. Rather than an outright ban, requiring qualified blind trusts would eliminate the conflict of interest while allowing members to maintain their wealth. The argument is that a ban is a more extreme measure than necessary.
- Talent recruitment and retention. Restricting financial activity could discourage successful business leaders and investors from running for office. If Congress cannot attract people with financial expertise, the quality of economic legislation could suffer.
- Constitutional concerns. Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution provides certain privileges and immunities to members. Some legal scholars argue that restricting a member's financial activity could face challenges under the Speech or Debate Clause, though most legal analysis considers a trading ban constitutional.
- Scope and enforcement complexity. Defining what counts as a "stock" is difficult. Should the ban cover options, ETFs, crypto, SPACs, private placements? Every carve-out creates a loophole. The more comprehensive the ban, the harder it is to enforce.
What the Data Shows
GovGreed's analysis of 99,546 deduplicated STOCK Act disclosures filed between 2012 and 2026 shows how the current disclosure system works in practice. Here is what the data says about the case for a trading ban.
The STOCK Act requires disclosure within 45 days of a trade. In practice, the average disclosure gap is 48.8 days, and the median is 28 days. This means the public learns about congressional trades weeks or months after they happen, rendering the transparency mechanism nearly useless for real-time accountability.
The worst offenders file hundreds of days late. Among the most active traders, Michael McCaul (R-TX) has 3,405 late disclosures out of 16,488 total trades (20.7%). Thomas Suozzi (D-NY) filed 85.5% of his 635 trades late, with an average gap of 675 days.
A trading ban would not touch ordinary investors — it would touch some of the richest people in American public life. From their annual Personal Financial Disclosures, GovGreed ranks 450 members by declared net worth: the median sitting member is already a millionaire, and the top of the list runs far higher — Jim Justice (~$1.3B), Rick Scott (~$480M), Darrell Issa (~$254M), Nancy Pelosi (~$122M).
These are the members who would cast the deciding votes on whether to restrict their own stock trading. See the full ranking on the Congressional Net Worth leaderboard.
GovGreed tracks 946,133 bill-trade correlations that link congressional trades to legislative activity. Each one pairs a disclosed trade with a bill touching the same sector and records the number of days between them.
This does not prove illegal insider trading. It proves the structural conditions for conflict of interest exist at scale, and that the current disclosure system does not prevent or even adequately document them.
For the full methodology behind GovGreed's 7-layer signal scoring model and backtesting results, see Greed Is Predictable: How Congressional Trades Follow Detectable Patterns.
What Happens If a Ban Passes?
If a congressional stock trading ban becomes law, the implementation would involve several key transitions. Here is what each would look like based on the most comprehensive current proposals.
Divestiture window. H.R. 7008, the House-passed bill, has none: it bans new purchases and leaves existing holdings in place. Ownership bans are different: the Restore Trust in Congress Act (S.3649) would give current members 180 days to divest covered investments. GovGreed's database holds trade disclosures from 353 current and former members. Members who only hold diversified index funds or Treasury securities would not need to act.
Blind trust requirements. Qualified blind trusts must be approved by the relevant ethics committee and managed by an independent trustee. The member cannot communicate about holdings, and the trustee has full discretion over buy/sell decisions. This model already exists in the executive branch.
Allowed investments. Most ban proposals would still permit holdings in diversified mutual funds, index funds (such as S&P 500 ETFs), Treasury securities, and certain government bonds. The goal is to eliminate stock-picking where informational advantage applies, not to prevent all investment.
Market impact. The direct impact on stock prices would likely be minimal. Congressional trading volume, while large in absolute terms, is small relative to total market volume. The most-traded stocks by Congress (MSFT: 1,199 trades, AAPL: 1,113 trades, AMZN: 710 trades) have deep liquidity. The more significant effect would be the removal of informed congressional order flow from the market.
Historical precedent. Most executive branch officials already work under a federal conflict-of-interest law (18 U.S.C. § 208) that bars them from acting on matters affecting their own financial interests, which is why many divest when they take office. Members of Congress are not covered by that statute. A congressional trading ban would move legislative branch ethics closer to the executive branch standard.