AOC and Matt Gaetz teaming up to ban congressional stock trades could signal a generational divide

An unlikely mix of lawmakers spanning MAGA Republicans and democratic socialists is joining forces in hopes of finally keeping fellow members of Congress from being able to trade stocks.

The team includes two Republican representatives: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, one of the House’s most bipartisan members, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is among its most far-right. They introduced the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act on Tuesday along with two colleagues across the aisle: pro-business New Democrat centrist Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Democratic Socialists of America member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

The bill would prohibit members of Congress from trading or even owning stocks. And, so it isn’t merely a “veneer” of accountability, it would prohibit their spouses and dependents from doing so too.

A fight by members of Congress to ban their colleagues from trading stocks has been underway for years. Last year, bills to ban (or at least limit) congressional stock trading were introduced in both chambers. They received considerable bipartisan support yet weren’t ever brought to the floor for votes.

From 2019 to 2021, about one-third of Congress’s 535 members disclosed a stock trade made by either themselves or a family member. Among that crew were 65 Democrats and 79 Republicans in the House, and 17 Democrats and 22 Republicans in the Senate, suggesting the issue is equal-opportunity. More than half of those members sat on committees that, conveniently, oversaw the companies whose stocks they reported trading.

In recent months, though, the attacks have gotten more partisan. To buff up their populist bona fides, the MAGA faction has leveraged it as proof that Democrat Nancy Pelosi, a longtime opponent of a ban, is unethical. (She’s won Jacobin‘s ignominious Wall Street Trader of the Year award and once argued, “We’re a free-market economy.”) In January, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri reintroduced a bill he created last year, called the PELOSI Act (“Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments”), which would give lawmakers and their family six months to divest from individual stocks they owned, or place them into a blind trust.

Polls have shown that Americans generally favor restrictions on government officials trading stocks.

Youth coalition

Beyond putting political differences aside, what this new bill’s authors share—and how they differ from the lawmakers typically targeted for insider trading—is their youth. Pelosi is 82 years old. Stony Hoyer, who refused to support a ban last fall as House majority leader, is 83. Gaetz, Ocasio-Cortez, Fitzpatrick, and Krishnamoorthi are between the ages of 33 and 49, and seemingly want to brandish their reputations as lawmakers who are outside the Beltway.

“The fact that Members of the Progressive Caucus, the Freedom Caucus, and the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, reflecting the entirety of the political spectrum, can find common ground on key issues like this should send a powerful message to America,” Fitzpatrick’s statement announcing their bill says. “Members of Congress . . . must be prohibited from trading in stocks while they are serving in Congress and have access to sensitive, inside information.”

Regardless, their alliance still has an alternate-dimension quality. On Tuesday, Gaetz went on Fox News, where he told commentator Jesse Watters: “AOC is wrong a lot, she’d probably say the same thing about me, but she’s not corrupt. And I will work with anyone and everyone to ensure that Congress is not so compromised.”

Members of Congress traded $788 million worth of securities last year, and according to Unusual Whales, a sizable chunk beat the S&P 500.

Gaetz also cited another example: veteran Democrat Lois Frankel of Florida, whose recent financial disclosures reveal that she unloaded shares of First Republic four days before the bank collapsed, then bought shares of JPMorgan Chase, which is about to acquire First Republic. (In a response to CNN, she said her financial account is “managed independently.”) Frankel is currently in her fifth decade of serving in Congress. “I’m supposed to believe that all of a sudden, she’s making moves like she’s Warren Buffet?” Gaetz joked to Watters.