House To Vote On Congressional Insider-Trading Ban

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly this morning, to improve what is known as the STOCK Act. That's a bill that would make it illegal for members of Congress and other government officials to trade on insider information. In an election year when Congress is having trouble reaching agreement on much of anything, the STOCK Act has enjoyed wide, bipartisan approval.

NPR's Sonari Glinton has been covering this story for us. He's at the Capitol. Hi, Sonari.

SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.

INSKEEP: I guess we should mention, for people, that STOCK Act - it's one of those acronyms that they use

GLINTON: Yes, it's called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act.

INSKEEP: OK. And what does it do?

GLINTON: Well, there's all kinds of information that members of Congress and their staffers get, going about their jobs. You know, like which road will be built, which program will be defunded, which bridge will go where. And this explicitly bans using that information to profit on, say, the stock market.

INSKEEP: You know, as you talk I'm reminded of the famous New York politician, George Washington Plunkitt who talked about honest graft, which is basically – not actually stealing money, but seeing that a piece of land was gonna become more valuable because the government wanted it or something, and going there in advance and buying it. You're saying that kind of graft would be outlawed by this bill if it becomes law.

GLINTON: Yeah. Using the information you get before the public can is going to be illegal because of the STOCK Act.

INSKEEP: You would think that would already be illegal. I mean, that sounds pretty corrupt.

GLINTON: Yeah, when – and there's some question as to whether it is illegal, like, that there are many, many laws that forbid this. People are still arguing about whether this behavior is already illegal. But what they're saying is that this bill says: now, without a doubt, you cannot use information you get on the job in government to profit from it.

INSKEEP: Is this one of those ideas that's just been kicking around Congress for awhile or was there a specific case that caused people to focus on this.

GLINTON: Well, it has been kicking around for about six years and the specific case was a book, and the great "60 Minutes," which did a piece about it. Before the "60 Minutes" piece, there were very few cosponsors on the bill, and after the "60 Minutes" piece there was a stampede of lawmakers to sign on and say: I am in support of this.

INSKEEP: They say that. And of course, as we noted, there's bipartisan support, it was an overwhelming vote, and yet there has been some controversy surrounding this bill.

GLINTON: Yeah. The bill that passed the House differs from the one that passed the Senate in a – it scraps a couple of proposals. One is the proposal that would have made federal prosecutors – given them the ability to go after corrupt officials, and it also took out a provision that would've required political intelligence consultants to register. Now, these are people who go around and they look for all the information they can get about the process, about Congress people, about what's in the pipeline about what's to come, and then they sell that to companies and lobbyists and things like that. So, taking out those provisions made the writers of the bill pretty angry, but they decided to vote for it anyway 'cause they wanted this on the books while they had the momentum and while they had all of this public spotlight on it.

INSKEEP: Just one thing, Sonari Glinton, you said that they took out a provision that would allow federal criminal prosecutors to go after members of Congress for insider trading. So if prosecutors can't go after them, who does enforce the rules here if this becomes law?

GLINTON: Uh, federal regulators like the FCC, which, you know, people say that the FCC doesn't necessarily have the teeth to go after an individual member of Congress.

INSKEEP: Any chance that the two versions of the bill – House and Senate – actually will get worked out and hammered into a single bill that gets to the president?

GLINTON: Well, that's what the backers of the bill are hoping, that they will get together and hammer out the differences. And they'll have a tougher bill than the one that's in the House, and it will go to the president for his signature.

INSKEEP: NPR's Sonari Glinton is on Capitol Hill tonight, thanks for the update.

GLINTON: You're welcome.

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