Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first, let me make the point to the Senator from California, I am a cosponsor of the STOCK Act. I cosponsored Senator Brown's bill, so it is not that I do not think legislation is needed in this area. I am a cosponsor on this bill and have commended him for his work. But the fact remains that in our committee markup the bill was changed. I know the Senator was distracted when I answered that question. The bill was changed in committee to extend to the executive branch. It is in the bill that is before us now. The Senator was misinformed in that regard. The bill was changed to make very clear that the insider trading prohibition applied to the executive branch and that executive branch members have a duty to their agencies, to the government. We make that explicit. That was changed in committee. The Senator is not correct that the bill that was brought to the floor only applied to Congress. It does not. It applies to the executive branch. The second point I will make is this is not a partisan issue. We have bills on both sides of the aisle. We have amendments on both sides of the aisle. Indeed, we have disclosure amendments that apply to the executive branch coming from both sides of the aisle. Senator Wyden has a disclosure amendment that is similar to that of Senator Shelby's. We are working with both of those offices right now to try to work those out.…”