Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, the bill we're considering today, the STOCK Act, would prohibit Members of Congress and other legislative branch employees, as well as executive and judicial branch employees, from using nonpublic information for personal benefit derived from an individual's position or gained from the performance of an individual's duties. Today, we are amending the Senate-passed bill, S. 2038, with a substitute that makes some changes to the Senate text, such as regrettably eliminating the requirement that certain political intelligence activities be disclosed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. These intelligence firms obtain inside information from Members of Congress and their staffs, and then they sell that information to investment firms. The public should be informed of these types of contacts. With this bill, our goal is to hold Members of Congress, as well as other government officials, to the same standard as those in corporations who have the duty not to trade on information that is not available to the general public. Most Members of Congress believed that this type of activity was wrong whether explicitly prohibited by criminal law or at least subject to Ethics Committee sanctions. Most of us assumed that a Food and Drug Administration official could not call a stockbroker shortly before a blockbuster drug were to be approved and profit off of that insider knowledge. We just assumed that that was wrong.…”