Oops, I did it again: This Democratic congresswoman violated a federal law for a second time

A Democratic congresswoman from North Carolina with a history of more than 50 late stock disclosures appears to have violated a decade-old federal transparency and conflicts-of-interest law.

Again.

Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) reported purchasing $29,122 worth of stock in investment management company Blackstone Inc. on June 10, 2022, jointly with her husband — more than a year late, according to an Aug. 2 federal filing reviewed by Raw Story.

“The purchase was inadvertently omitted due to an administrative error. The error was discovered during preparation of the 2022 Annual Report for timely filing on August 2, 2023,” read a description on Manning’s filing.

The description noted that Manning sold the stock at a loss five days later for $25,755 on June 15, 2022, which she correctly reported to U.S. House officials on July 7, 2022 report.

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But Manning never disclosed she purchased the stock in the first place — a requirement of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. The law, passed in 2012 to stop insider trading, curb conflicts-of-interest and enhance transparency, requires prompt reporting within 45 days of most purchases, sales and exchanges of stocks, bonds, commodity futures and cryptocurrency by key government officials, particularly members of Congress.

This is Manning’s second known STOCK Act violation. Sludge reported in February 2022 that Manning and her husband failed to properly report 51 trades totaling between $275,000 and $1.25 million.

Many of the 51 stocks were in tech companies such as Meta and Amazon, which have faced high-stakes legislative battles in Congress.

The couple’s stock transactions with Nvidia, meanwhile, came at a time when the semiconductor company stood to benefit from billions in subsidies from the America COMPETES Act, according to Sludge.

Manning was one of eight representatives who signed a letter asking for the delay of a House Judiciary Committee markup of antitrust bills, Sludge reported as well.

Manning also purchased shares in chip manufacturers, Micron Technology and Nvidia, on July 27, 2022, the day before she voted for the bipartisan CHIPS Act. But she said the purchases were made by a third-party broker, not by herself or husband directly, local North Carolina Fox station WGHP reported.

“Congresswoman Manning and her husband have no discretion or control over the underlying assets held in the accounts. Neither Congresswoman Manning nor her husband exercised, or attempted to exercise, any control or direction over any transactions executed within the accounts,” said a statement from Manning’s staff sent to WGHP. “Congresswoman Manning supported the CHIPS Act because it will incentivize investments in semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, which will create good-paying jobs, strengthen our country’s competitive edge, and protect our national security.”

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Manning’s congressional office did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

The standard fine for violating the STOCK Act is $200, but the House Committee on Ethics and Senate Select Committee on Ethics have historically waived the fees for many violators.

In a recent interview with Raw Story, one of the STOCK Act’s original authors, former Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), blasted Congress for its continued excuses for failing to abide by the law.

“I mean, come on. ‘The dog ate my homework,’ aren’t we a little more grown up than that?” Baird said. “If we're capable of voting on whether or not to raise or lower taxes or send people to war, I think we can report when we make an investment.”

Epidemic of violations

Dozens of members of Congress have failed to comply with the STOCK Act. During the 117th Congress from 2021 to 2022, at least 78 members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — were found to have violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions, according to a tally maintained by Insider.

Raw Story has this year identified at least 19 members of the 118th Congress who have broken the federal conflicts of interest law, including the new addition of Manning.

In recent weeks, repeat violators have broken the federal disclosure law again — Rep. Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) violated the STOCK Act for the third time in 14 months, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) was several months late disclosing a family stock sale — again.

And Manning isn’t the only North Carolina legislator to violate the STOCK Act.

Of the 19 legislators Raw Story has identified as violating the STOCK Act, four of them are from North Carolina — Manning, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C). and Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C). That’s one in four members of North Carolina’s 16-member congressional delegation — 14 House members and two senators.

The ongoing violations come at a time when a bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced several similar bills aimed at banning congressional stock trading.

The most recent legislation introduced is the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act, which would prohibit members of Congress, the president, the vice president, senior executive branch officials, their spouses and children from trading stocks and would require greater transparency with financial disclosures, The Hill reported.

Another two-party bill, the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act was introduced in May and is co-sponsored in part by political rivals in Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Other materially similar bills include the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, the TRUST in Congress Act and the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act. In the decade since the STOCK Act’s passage, the push for a total ban on lawmakers trading stocks while in office gained but then lost momentum last year when the Democratic-led House, then led by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, decided not to conduct a hearing on any of stock-ban bills and never brought it to the House floor for a vote.

News organizations including the New York Times, Insider, NPR and Sludge have documented rampant financial conflicts of interests among dozens of members of Congress, such as those who bought and sold defense contractor stock while occupying positions on congressional armed services committees or otherwise voting on measures to send such companies billions of federal dollars. The executive and judicial branches are riddled with similar financial conflict issues, too, as the Wall Street Journal hasreported.

The Wall Street Journal won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for its investigation into financial conflicts among officials who work in federal agencies while Insider won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Award for its reporting on congressional financial conflicts.