Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have teamed up to introduce a bipartisan bill to Congress. I didn’t have that one on my bingo card but maybe I should have. The two have teamed up before; and AOC has a talent for generating headlines while Matt Gaetz might have a little of that Trump-style invincibility in him. Nevertheless, the two “have historically clashed and been on opposing ends of political ideologies” making them an unlikely duo.
But when it comes to members of congress trading stock, AOC and Gaetz feel similarly: members of Congress shouldn’t be trading stock, which is what the pair’s Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act aims to prevent.
I’m not often in agreement with either AOC or Gaetz – but I’m with them both here. Members of Congress should absolutely not be trading stock.
According to Gaetz, Congress should “disallow congressional stock trading for the same reason we don’t allow the referee to bet on the game.”
Congressional stock trading is a problem
Members of Congress traded $788 million worth of securities in 2022 alone, Gaetz reported. “One in every four members of Congress is doing this, and it’s not exactly like I’m elected with a bunch of Gordon Gekkos and Bobby Axelrods,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz cited Representative Lois Frankel who sold her shares in First Republic Bank, conveniently, right before it collapsed. Then, also conveniently, Frankel bought shares in JPMorgan just before it bought First Republican.
“And I’m supposed to believe that all of a sudden she’s making moves like she’s Warren Buffet?” Gaetz said.
Yet, although it degrades public trust, US lawmakers are allowed to trade stocks – “even in major corporations that [lawmakers] have the power to regulate.” All the lawmakers have to do, to make everything kosher, is disclose the transactions under the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (aka the STOCK Act).
But between the end of 2021 and January 2023, “at least 78 members of Congress failed to properly report their trades,” Insider found.
Insider’s reporting “identified numerous conflicts-of-interest issues. Dozens of lawmakers’ personal stock trades are discordant with their public responsibilities, such as members who craft anti-tobacco policy but invest in tobacco giants and others who receive plaudits from environmental groups for crafting policy aimed at combating the climate crisis – yet invest in fossil fuel companies.”
Back to the Gaetz – AOC relationship
AOC and Gaetz represent different ends of the political spectrum – but their willingness to work together on banning congressional trading speaks to the bipartisan public support behind imposing such restrictions.
And while AOC and Gaetz have worked together in the past, they are still not a likely duo; the two have criticized each other in the past. AOC, for her part, has gone pretty hard on Gaetz, “slamming a climate proposal he made in 2019, making comments about a sex-trafficking investigation against him that was later dropped, and describing him as a “bad haircut in a cheap suit.””
Gaetz, like all Republicans, has criticized AOC in the past. But he’s also defended her. Like with this elegant, powerful tweet from 2020: “She is not a bitch.”
More recently, Gaetz has defended AOC in light of their newest collaboration, saying that while AOC is often wrong, she is not corrupt.
Stay tuned as members of congress grapple with a bill that cuts against their own financial interests.
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Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
