U.S. Senate blocks ban on stock trading by lawmakers

By a 53-47 vote, the Senate failed to reach the 60-vote threshold to open debate on the “Stop Insider Trading Act,” sponsored by Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. The bill would have barred members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from buying shares in public companies — but Democrats said it did not go far enough and contained a Republican “poison pill”: a photo ID requirement for voting, taken from the SAVE America Act, which they described as an attempt at voter suppression.

“Another desperate Republican attempt to pretend they are fighting corruption, when they really just want political points because they are drowning in their campaigns,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, as Reuters reports. Democrats particularly objected that the bill allowed lawmakers to keep the shares they already owned, use dividends to buy more, and left a loophole for trading through spouses or children.

Republican Majority Leader John Thune defended the provisions a day earlier, saying they “strike at the heart of the issues the American people care deeply about,” Reuters reports. The bill had passed the House of Representatives in July with the support of only 13 Democrats. According to a December study by Common Cause, members of Congress from both parties carried out 13,324 transactions last year, worth a total of $635.6 million.

Wednesday’s vote was one of the last before senators disperse until after the November 3 midterm elections, which will decide who controls each chamber of Congress — where Republicans currently hold narrow majorities. Some Democrats favor a complete ban on stock trading by lawmakers, with some wanting to extend it to the president, the executive branch and the Supreme Court. According to media reports in July, President Donald Trump himself had carried out 21,000 securities trades in 2025, growing his accounts to more than $850 million.