Can Rep. Bachus and His Money-Crazed Congressional Colleagues Be Stopped from Insider Trading?

Back in the Gilded Age, venality was the rule in Congress. Bribes were as common as tobacco pipes. Lawmakers fattened their bank accounts through insider deals, with the needs of ordinary people an afterthought. Nelson Aldrich, a powerful Republican who served in the Senate from 1881 to 1911, was that corrupt era’s political poster boy, serving on the Finance Committee and using his position to invest in railroads, sugar, rubber and banking deals that made him rich.

Sound familiar? It should. We’re well on our way to repeating that money-crazed chapter in American history as a growing list of legislators use their office to play the game, "Who Wants to Be a Multi-millionaire?”

Last week we learned that Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Alabama, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics – the first such case involving a member of Congress. The probe comes at a time when America’s ethics alarm bells are ringing loudly. In the business world, trading on insider information is a crime punishable with prison time, but Congress operates in a different – and very lucrative -- universe. Recently, the House and the Senate have been debating legislation to stiffen rules on insider trading by lawmakers in the wake of a "60 Minutes" report and a book focusing on the topic, Throw Them All Out, by Peter Schweizer of the conservative Hoover Foundation. But the legislation, known as the STOCK Act, appears to be stalling.

For the public, the debate centers on several questions. Should members of Congress get to trade on and make money from inside information that can seriously sway the markets? Are elected representatives serving the interest of their constituents, or are they serving their bank accounts? And just how do we stop them from abusing their office through insider trading?

More Than Just Luck

A big sign that something is rotten in Washington is that members of Congress who play the stock market do much better on average than the individual investor.

Back in 2004, a study* considered by academics to be the baseline work in the field was published by researchers at four universities. These researchers, Alan Ziobrowski of Georgia State among them, found that during the boom years of 1993-'98, a majority of US senators were trading stocks -- and they were beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. Corporate insiders, on the other hand, only beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent. Interestingly, there were no differences found between Democrats and Republicans. (See Gail Chaddock's report on the study in the Christian Science Monitor.)

12 percent is a statistically shocking number, way beyond luck or just being smart. Nobody does that well. Not George Soros. Not Warren Buffett.

The 2004 study sent chills through Congress as members realized they were under scrutiny. And yet legislators have gone right on lining their pockets using insider information. In the executive branch, you’re expected to divest yourself of assets when you take office or put your investments into what are known as “blind trusts.” But legislators consider inside dealmaking their divine right. They typically go right on playing the stock market and often neglect to bow out when they have a financial interest in an issue they are legislating. Disclosure statements they have to release are pretty much a joke – they’re incomplete, and they are difficult and expensive for the public to obtain. A reporter requesting documents has to disclose his or her information in the request, which is then sent straight to the member, a move which can be intimidating to those asking questions.