Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., filed a discharge petition on Tuesday in a bid to force a vote on a proposal to ban lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children from owning and trading individual stocks.
“Today WE introduced the bipartisan legislation that will ban members of Congress from being able to partake in the insider trading cartel happening here in the House of Representatives. We had to do it via discharge petition because of the BS on the back end. And yes, there is BS,” Luna wrote in a Tuesday post on X.
The “Restore Trust in Congress Act,” spearheaded earlier this year by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., with backing from a bipartisan batch of other lawmakers, would ban members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from owning or trading “an investment in a security, a commodity, a future, or any comparable economic interest acquired through synthetic means, such as the use of a derivative, including an option, warrant, or other similar means.” It also requires divestment from those investment vehicles that they already hold.
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Lawmakers would face financial penalization if they fail to comply.
The proposal states that prohibitions would not apply to ownership in “a widely held investment fund” that “is diversified and publicly traded on a national or regional stock exchange.”
And while the ban includes investment in commodities, the proposal specifically stipulates that the word “commodity” under the measure would not include precious metals.
Luna, who is listed as one of the original cosponsors of the “Restore Trust in Congress Act” that was introduced earlier this year, is using procedural machinations to indirectly force a vote on the substance of that measure.
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Her discharge petition would force a vote on a resolution that, if approved, would strike the content from a separate bill, swap in the content of the “Restore Trust in Congress Act,” and proceed to House consideration of the proposed congressional stock ownership and trading ban.
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In a joint statement responding to the discharge petition on Tuesday, Roy and Magaziner said, “The clock is now running. If leadership does not move quickly to put forward a strong ban on congressional stock trading, the members of the body will act.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said in a post on X on Tuesday that she would sign the discharge petition.
“It’s absolutely unconscionable that a bill banning Members of Congress from trading individual stocks needs a discharge petition just to get a vote on the House Floor,” she wrote.
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