Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair. So we are on the STOCK Act and Senator Leahy has introduced this amendment, which I appreciate that he has done that. This underlying bill, as we said yesterday, responds to the concern about whether Members of Congress and our staffs are covered by insider trading laws; that is, laws that prohibit a person from using nonpublic information for private profit. I suppose most of us here believed we have always been covered by insider trading laws. There were some questions raised about that at the end of last year. In fact, our committee held a hearing on two bills offered, one by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the other by Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, on this question, and we had some broadly respected, credible experts on securities law who said in fact there might be a question about Members of Congress, whether Members of Congress and our staffs were covered by Securities and Exchange Commission law and regulation on insider trading for a reason that would only make sense to lawyers and therefore may not be sensible but I will mention it anyway. It is that the law relating to insider trading is actually the result not of a specific statute prohibiting insider trading, it is the result of regulations and enforcement actions by the SEC pursuant to antifraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.…”