Political Quotes

“in 6 or 7 minutes the Senate will begin a series of votes on the matter before us, the STOCK Act. I want to take a few moments to restate the underlying main purpose of the legislation, which is to respond to the public concern, informed by testimony before our committee from experts on securities law, that it is not totally clear that Members of Congress and our staffs are covered by anti-insider trading laws enforced by the SEC. The No. 1 accomplishment of this proposal will be to make that crystal clear. We are not exempt from that law; we should not be exempt. I presume most Members of Congress have assumed we have never been exempt. But this will make it clear if anybody crosses the line, they cannot defend themselves by saying that Members of Congress are not covered by the law. We have also added in committee a couple of provisions which embrace the old but still important notion that sunshine is the best disinfectant in government by requiring that the annual financial disclosure reports we file will now be filed electronically and will therefore be available on the Internet. Right now, these are public documents. When they are filed in the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, people have to go there and make copies of them to see them. As Senator Begich, our colleague from Alaska, said: That is not easy if you are an Alaskan. This will bring that system up to date.…”