Democrats Should Run on a Bold Anti-corruption Agenda

Being anti-corruption is a winning message.

One of the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidency was his sincere commitment to corruption on every level. Trump’s entire presidency was an exercise in kleptocracy, from his allegedly family-enriching inauguration to his failed coup after he lost his reelection bid. Jimmy Carter put his interest in the family peanut farm in a blind trust, but Trump’s family kept his hotels and everything else. The man who promised to “drain the swamp” installed his daughter and son-in-law as advisers, and benefited from the RNC paying legal fees and buying $300,000 worth of his son’s book.

The upside of all this? It presents Democrats with a legislative opportunity.

Banning congressional trading is a very popular idea. According to a survey from the conservative advocacy group Convention of States Action, “76 percent of voters believe that lawmakers and their spouses have an ‘unfair advantage’ in the stock market.” Democrats could use an enemy, something solid to run against, and corruption is something that is wildly unpopular for obvious reasons. At the same time, crusading against corruption is—or should be, at least—a bipartisan concern. This is the bold, popular messaging that the Democratic base could get excited about ahead of the midterms.

According to Edelman's 2022 global “Trust Barometer,” 66 percent of people worry that government leaders are “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.” Brian Deese, the head of the National Economic Council and a Biden economic adviser, told Andrew Ross Sorkin on Squawk Box that banning members of Congress from trading on the public markets is “sensible” and could “restore faith in our institutions.”

“A ban on Congressional stock trading is about eradicating not only the substance but also the appearance of corruption. It is about giving the public confidence that Members of Congress are here to serve their interests, rather than our own,” Congressman Ritchie Torres, who represents part of the Bronx, texted me when I asked him if Democrats should press this issue.

But in December, when asked if members of Congress should be banned from trading stocks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We are a free-market economy. [Members of Congress and their spouses] should be able to participate in that.” Pelosi may have personal reasons for saying this—she is fabulously wealthy and married to a venture capitalist. She is also squandering an opportunity. Over the past couple years, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle—approximately 75 of them—have traded stocks tied to the pandemic.

Georgia, a red state in recent decades, had two Republican senators who loved to trade stocks. Former Senator David Perdue executed 2,596 stock trades during his one Senate term, and during the pandemic, then-Senator Kelly Loeffler was under the scrutiny of the Senate Ethics Committee for her love of stock trading. The probe was later dropped, but according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “An analysis of the [Senate Ethics] committee’s publicly available annual reports from 2007 through 2019 shows it received 1,189 complaints of alleged violations. Not one resulted in a disciplinary sanction, records show.” There were other elements in play, but ultimately both Perdue and Loeffler lost their reelection bids.

There are currently two competing anti-trading bills in the Senate. The Republican bill comes from area insurrection supporter Senator Josh Hawley (the Banning Insider Trading in Congress Act), and the other, from Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Mark Kelly (the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act). According to CNN, the biggest difference between the two is that “Ossoff and Kelly’s legislation would fine the lawmakers from their salaries if they broke the law, while Hawley's would require lawmakers in the wrong to return their profits to the American people through the Treasury Department.” It’s hard for me to imagine that Hawley, who has been plagued by rumors that he uses his sister’s address in the Ozarks for his voter registration (though supposedly he’s building a house there), is going to be the one to clean up the Senate.

Richard Nixon’s fall led to a golden age of anti-corruption legislation. After he resigned, the Watergate scandal led to even greater reforms, like the creation of the permanent select intelligence committees in the House and Senate and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as well as the passage of the Hughes–Ryan Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, which forced the president to notify congressional committees of spending on covert actions outside the United States.

Nixon awakened an appetite for anti-corruption governance in Washington. If Democrats were focused, they could push an anti-corruption agenda as a way of combatting the worst of Trumpism. As Republicans consolidate power and make it harder for Americans to vote and Democrats to win, those Democrats could be pushing a legislative agenda that is about transparency, good governance, and, most importantly, anti-corruption.

This ban is the kind of good populism lawmakers should be embracing, and outlawing congressional trading is an easy win for Democrats in a world where easy wins are few. If you want to trade stocks, you should work at a hedge fund, not in the United States Capitol.