Congress Quickly And Quietly Rolls Back Insider Trading Rules For Itself
from the can't-mess-with-the-profits dept
In November of 2011, the TV show 60 Minutes did a big expose on insider trading within Congress. While everyone else is subject to basic insider trading rules, it turned out that members of Congress were exempt from the rules. And, as you would imagine, many in Congress have access to market-moving, non-public information. And they made use of it. To make lots and lots of money. Of course, after that report came out and got lots of attention, Congress had to act, and within months they had passed the STOCK Act with overwhelming support in Congress to make insider trading laws that apply to everyone else finally apply to Congress and Congressional staffers as well. As that link notes:The lopsided votes showed lawmakers desperate to regain public trust in an election year, when the public approval rating of Congress has sunk below 15 percent.Of course, here we are in 2013 and, lo and behold, it is no longer an election year. And apparently some of the details of the ban on insider trading were beginning to chafe Congressional staffers, who found it hard to pad their income with some friendly trades on insider knowledge.
So... with very little fanfare, Congress quietly rolled back a big part of the law late last week. Specifically the part that required staffers to post disclosures about their financial transactions, so that the public could make sure there was no insider trading going on. Congress tried to cover up this fairly significant change because they, themselves, claimed that it would pose a "national risk" to have this information public. A national risk to their bank accounts.
It was such a national risk that Congress did the whole thing quietly, with no debate. The bill was introduced in the Senate on Thursday and quickly voted on late that night when no one was paying attention. Friday afternoon (the best time to sneak through news), the House picked it up by unanimous consent. The House ignored its own promise to give Congress three days to read a bill before holding a vote, because this kind of thing is too important to let anyone read the bill before Congress had to pass it.
And, of course, yesterday, President Obama signed it into law. Because the best way to rebuild trust in Congress, apparently, is to roll back the fact that people there need to obey the same laws as everyone else. That won't lead the public to think that Congress is corrupt. No, not at all.
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Filed Under: congress, corruption, insider trading, transparency
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Corruption
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Re: Corruption
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Re: Corruption
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I find this disheartening
Here we have a supreme example of overwhelming bipartisanship and all you can do is whine and complain....
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Re: I find this disheartening
For instance, SOPA/PIPA initially had wide bipartisan support.
But when it comes to something important, like a budget, they cant seem to deal with it.
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Re: Re: I find this disheartening
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Re: I find this disheartening
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Re: I find this disheartening
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Re: I find this disheartening
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Re: Re: I find this disheartening
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Re: Re: I find this disheartening
Did you skip right to the comments and not bother to read the blog?
It was a pretty short entry on how:
THE SENATE, HOUSE and PRESIDENT all WORKED TOGETHER.
That's pretty much Bi-partisan.
Sigh.
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Re: I find this disheartening
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Re: I find this disheartening
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Someone's been drinking the Kool-Aid again.
Americans no longer trust their government, and, in my opinion, won't settle until the House is cleaned of the roaches now infesting it.
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The sad part is that there are plenty more roaches ready and willing to take their place and are just as corrupt. If only we could go back to having citizen congressmen that come together for a short time and go back to their jobs; thereby allowing others to take their place. This is the sort of crap that happens when you let a government body pass laws that affect themselves without input from the public. Congress should never be allowed to pass or amend a law resulting in an exemption for themselves or specifically targeted at themselves. Congressmen should be regarded as any other citizen.
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Nothing can restore trust in government on its own. But you gotta start somewhere. Journey of a thousand miles, and all that.
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Re: congress criminals
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 16th, 2013 @ 11:27am
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 16th, 2013 @ 11:27am
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Re:
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Every pundit in the US, both right and left should be grilling our elected officials over this one.
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Response to: Ryan Good on Apr 16th, 2013 @ 11:44am
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Response to: Ryan Good on Apr 16th, 2013 @ 11:44am
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These People Have Hard Jobs
If "We the People" want a voice in "These United States" then we need to dissolve the corporation that our government has been outsourced to. They apparently can't protect us from "terrorist" attacks while they steal, bend the rules and remove peoples rights.
It is time to start prosecuting white collar crime like it is copyright infringement or hacking.
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Re: These People Have Hard Jobs
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And then they wonder why people don't vote. We have a one nation party. I'm sure this serves the corporate-types leaking the information, sort of a merry-go-round among the 1%.
"Friday afternoon (the best time to sneak through news), the House picked it up by unanimous consent. The House ignored its own promise to give Congress three days to read a bill before holding a vote..."
And there goes the Faux Tea Party / libertarian idealists if they don't want to admit thier hero's are in the same boat with everyone else. If they weren't corporate-backed, these kind of shennanigan's should create tidal waves. I'll be interested to hear how it'll spun, if it makes the news at all.
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Re:
I wish there was an edit button.
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Party
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Social issues only, no fiscal or foreign policy
"gun control, anti-abortion restrictions, immigration, gay marriage / civil union rights, medical marijuana, birth control, or any of the other hot topics [are] meant to distract the public from what's REALLY going on".
Seems that way to me too. Sadly, it also seems that regulations, which should help, are being used to serve other, quite separate agendas.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 16th, 2013 @ 12:03pm
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Re:
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OUR SERVANTS should always have to prove innocence,
Simple and fully valid solution is to pull down the Rich and powerful: they're ALWAYS crooks.
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Re: OUR SERVANTS should always have to prove innocence,
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Re: OUR SERVANTS should always have to prove innocence,
You can't possibly honestly stand behind the sentiment behind your statement here. It's ridiculous. Of course elected officials should have to convince people of their innocence or risk people not voting for them. It's not a right to be an elected official, you don't need a trial to get rid of the ones who walk, talk and act corrupt. If you did, you would never have a prayer of getting rid of any corruption unless they decided they wanted to let you.
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Re: Re: OUR SERVANTS should always have to prove innocence,
That's my theory about the boy.
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Re: OUR SERVANTS should always have to prove innocence,
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
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Re: Re: OUR SERVANTS should always have to prove innocence,
Are some ppl rich? Yes
Are some ppl crooked? Yes
but the 2 together are not always true... Some of the greatest richest ppl give it all away or very large portions to make new science, new medicine, help the homeless, help educate (my personal one), and to feed the hungry... Who gets to decide what rich is? if all rich are bad, why do so many non-rich play the lotto? if being rich is bad why do so many ppl make a company?
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They're all about to sell
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Re: They're all about to sell
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Here we go again
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One of Obama's many broken promises
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Re: One of Obama's many broken promises
The Republicans probably told him they did so.
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Re: One of Obama's many broken promises
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PRESS?
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Re: PRESS?
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Re: Re: PRESS?
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Re: PRESS?
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Re: PRESS?
You said it yourself. We don't have PRESS in this country any more, we only have MEDIA. One is beholden to the citizenry, the other to the Corpratocracy. Your guess as to which goes to which.
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Re: PRESS?
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While they're at it,
I guess they don't need to hide anymore that they aren't there for the little people.
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Scandal Handlers and Schemes
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STOCK Rewind
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Who cares
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Re: Who cares
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Re: Who cares
Wow. Do you say this to the citizens of North Korea and the People's Republic of the Congo? How about Greece? Enjoy your shithole?
We don't like living in a place where civics include institutionalized corruption. It just happens to be our home.
Feel free to come in with your imperial swag and build us roads and teach us literacy, if you really think it'll help.
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Source says differently, even worse!
There are 28,000 senior government officials EXCLUDING all the members of Congress?! Or considered senior enough such that disclosure of financial information on a publicly available online database was:
Obama shouldn't have signed it into law if it were going to endanger government employees posted overseas! But he did, to get a big flashy spotlight of attention back when he wanted to be popular. Then he gets most of it repealed quickly, over a weekend, with complicity of both parties. We aren't idiots! That makes me feel MORE distrustful of government, rather than less.
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Re: Source says differently, even worse!
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This has created a firestorm (to put it mildly) regarding the truthfulness of both the title and contents of this article.
According to the postings at the other site, Congress exempted a lot of high level government employees/appointees from reporting financial information, but members of Congress, the President, and Vice President are not included in this revision to the law... which means Congress didn't actually exempt themselves from anything.
The postings at the other site include the PDFs of the changes and it does appear that Congress is still on the hook for financial reporting and Insider Trading restrictions.
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Re: Congress, insider trading
This article here, in TechDirt, is being quoted as evidence that the law was rolled back in its entirety. That is not true.
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American Dream? Fuck That.
When most people hear "American Dream" they imagine a good middle class living, but those were the symptoms.
Basically the American Dream was the hope that some day ours would be a true meritocratic economy: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
Nowadays it's an illusion, while big corporations evade taxes with a double Irish with a Dutch sandwich, and people with money to invest can put it all in Halliburton just before a big war.
Now it looks like they're not even trying. There is no interest in balancing the income disparity or the wealth disparity. If you're born a Romney, you're as good as nobility, and you are considered to have as much divine right (in this case divine right by money) as if you were born a Tudor.
America is dead.
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Congress and insider trading
The president has gone too far once again. This Congress and our president continue to violate the Constitution and show American citizens the total disdain they have for us.
The actions of both our President and Congress over the last two decades has been deplorable at best.
Do they really think they are too big to fail?
The straw that broke the camels back fell on the camel a long time ago. Now the straw is burying the camel.
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Pigs at the trough
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Insider Trading
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To use against the R's in 2014 I bet.
Is anyone surprised that this started in the Senate?
Reid is so ethical.
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put them in jail if they use insider trading
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So vote already
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Re: So vote already
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congress exempting it's self or staff.
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Ha. Ha. Ha.
Once upon a time there was a land
of bold and brave
Whose founding Fathers firm inground do stand
within their graves.
There was such a wondrous land to stay,
The Land of Free
As long as one obey as sheeple prey
The Powers That Be.
There was but once a God, Who was revered
as manners state
-- Now it is but commonsense inversed,
Worshiping State.
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This is disgusting
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That's our CONgress!
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somebody didn't get the memo!
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Re: somebody didn't get the memo!
Though it was said by (attributed to) JFK, I think it would sound just lovely in French. Non?
* Disclaimer to everyone, especially the NSA, I'm not, with a big emphasis on NOT, suggesting or endorsing that anyone actually bomb a shopping mall.
capital building, though...
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Congress
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techdirt's commenters.
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Congressmen & Senators
In addition all federal compensation and fringe benefits, stops upon termination, Reelection failure and or term limits.
These 40 years of service gravey trainers have to go
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congress
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PLEASE PEOPLE - DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE SPREADING LIES
S 617 �Nullifies the effectiveness of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 (STOCK Act) with respect to mandatory public, on-line financial disclosure reporting by congressional staff (except Members of Congress and congressional candidates) and executive branch officers and employees (except the President, the Vice President, and officers at levels I and II of the Executive Schedule who require nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate).
Applies the financial disclosure reporting requirements and restrictions of the STOCK Act ONLY to Members of Congress, congressional candidates, the President, the Vice President, and executive branch officers at levels I and II of the Executive Schedule who require nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate.
Extends the deadline until January 1, 2014 for:
�the Secretary, the Sergeant at Arms, and the Clerk to develop systems to enable the electronic filing of financial disclosure reports as well as their on-line public availability;
�the Director of the Office of Government Ethics to develop such systems for financial disclosure forms filed by covered executive branch officials.
Repeals: (1) the prohibition against requiring a login to search or sort the data contained in the publicly available financial disclosure systems, and (2) the requirement that a login protocol with the name of the user be utilized by a person downloading data contained in the reports.
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/716
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Do as they Say... Not as "they" do!
I want the most perfect health care money can buy.
I want to work for a few years and get retirement, pension, and all the bennies Congress gets.
I want to show up and argue my views and make people live how I want them to live.
And lastly.....I want to be able to make broken promises to get elected while actualy just jet setting the globe in luxery while the government is sound asleep, the people are in trouble and the future is in deep sh*t.
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OUR CONGRESS IS CORRUPT
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Insider Trading by Congress
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congressional insider trading
their country from the scumballs in Washington. More embarrassing than Congress being able to do things like insider trading while citizens are being sent to prison for the same offense, ie Martha Stewart, are the Americans that turn their heads and won't be bothered because they are bought off cheaply with sports and beer. Reminds you of what we did to the Indians when we came to this country. You also have to wonder how paid off are the Federal and Supreme Courts that allow law after law to be passed that definitely violate numerous constitutional laws.
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Re: congressional insider trading
A lot of people are pissed off, but no one wants to be the guy disappeared for sedition.
Only when people are so desperate that they don't care anymore, only when the consequences of capture seem tolerable in comparison to their own state of life will people turn against the government.
And we still have no reason to expect the new boss won't be the same as the old boss.
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congressional insider trading
Just lookup the voting record of your congressional representatives. If they voted in favor, send them a note telling them how you feel about it. Let them know you will be doing everything possible to get them voted out of office.
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congress
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Ultravires congress
Congress should be seeking consent by internet voting in order to vote, by voice, or as recorded now that two way internet communication is possible. The people have the capacity to have limited and enforceable powers of congress now, not the privileged royal and autonomous congress that it has evolved into. reign them into their original Constitutional form and function.
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Congress
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Congress
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Who is policing the investments of the members of Congress?
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