Press Releases

Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03), a member of House Democratic Leadership, voted against a partisan measure combining H.R. 7008, the so-called Stop Insider Trading Act, with H.R. 9368, the Voter ID Act, a provision carved out of the broader SAVE America Act.

Despite Republican claims, H.R. 7008 is not a stock trading ban. It would let Members keep owning and selling stocks, and in some cases buying them, while leaving untouched the ability to trade equity in privately held companies on the strength of nonpublic information. Additionally, by only limiting the bill’s jurisdiction to members of Congress, it exempts the executive and judicial branches entirely, including the President, Vice President, and federal judges.

H.R. 9368 would require voters to produce one of a narrow set of documents to cast a ballot, in person or by mail. The list is more restrictive than any voter ID law currently on the books in any of the 50 states. It leaves out hunting and firearm licenses, fishing licenses, and student IDs. And because mail voters would have to send in copies of their ID, the bill would effectively end Americans’ ability to vote-by-mail as it exists today.

"House Republicans wrote a corruption bill that carefully avoids the most obvious corruption in Washington," said Congresswoman Trahan. "It exempts the President. Days before Trump talked up dozens of companies online, he was buying their stock. Now his media company is preparing to sell Wall Street a faster line to those posts. Republicans looked at that and wrote him an exemption.”

“Then they used the cover of a fake stock trading ban to jam through the most extreme voter suppression bill this Congress has seen – harsher than any voter ID law in any of the 50 states and the end of vote by mail as Americans know it,” continued Congresswoman Trahan. “This is the worst kind of politics. Shield the corruption, lie about the reform, and grab power at the expense of the most basic right Americans have.”

Trahan is a cosponsor of the HONEST Act, bipartisan legislation that would ban stock trading by Members of Congress, the President, and the Vice President. More than 70 percent of Americans support a ban across party lines. Last year, she called for Congress to take up legislation to ban members of Congress, the President, and Vice President from being able to profit off their public service.

###