Political Quotes

“I rise today to support cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the ``Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act,'' the ``STOCK Act''--S. 2038. We have come a long way in a short time in a bipartisan fashion on this bill, which does many good things. I want to start by thanking my colleagues, Ranking member Collins and Senators Gillibrand and Brown for all their work on this bill. And I want to thank Majority Leader Reid for making the STOCK Act the first bill the Senate debated after the winter recess. Mr. President, this problem received a jolt of momentum late last year when ``60 Minutes'' aired allegations that some Members of Congress and their staffs used information gained on their jobs to enrich themselves with time-sensitive investments in the stock market and nothing could be done because Congress had exempted itself from insider trading laws. We took the issue up at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in December and established that the charge that Congress had exempted itself from insider trading laws was just not true. However, it was also clear that existing laws needed to be clarified. At our committee hearing, several securities law experts told us that there was ambiguity in the law and they could not be sure how a court would rule if there was a challenge to the SEC's authority to bring an insider trading case against a Member of Congress.…”