New bill could finally nix any future Congressional stock scandals

Multiple senators sparked outrage when they sold off massive amounts of stock at the onset of the pandemic but new legislation could prevent such occurrences from ever happening again.

According to The Daily Beast, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers has come up with a way to diminish "any possibility of a conflict between members' official duties and their personal financial interests." Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) have introduced the TRUST Act, new legislation that would enforce requirements for elected officials.

Under the TRUST Act, lawmakers would be required to "place their stock holdings in a blind trust during their time in office." During a recent interview with the publication, Roy expressed his concerns about the events that led up to the bill he authored with Spanberger as he noted how such actions impact how the American public views Congress.

"The way people view Congress—and I'm one with a low opinion of Congress—it's sometimes artificially low, because they attribute things to us that aren't actually true," said Roy. "That's why it'd be important for us to do something like this."

Spanberger also expressed concern about the real issue with Congressional members having the advantage of selling off stock based on inside information they have.

"The idea that a member of Congress would be purchasing or selling stocks based on the knowledge they have… it's just on principle offensive to me," Spanberger said. "But the fact the American people said, 'yeah, that makes sense,' that's the part we need to take a step to remedy."

Since it will likely be an uphill battle for Congress to effectively regulate itself, Roy believes that for stricter ethical standards to be embraced "we have to get to a place where there's a critical mass of members saying, we need to get Congress back to Article I primacy, where the American people believe in Congress, doing what Congress ought to be doing to represent the American people."