Charles E. Schumer

Mr. President, Claims · 31 wordson stock trading, only Senate Republicans would dare call a bill that permits Members of Congress to continue to own, sell, and in some instances buy stocks a stock trading ban. Positioning · 18 wordsThey can’t be serious. The Republican bill is a permission slip for corruption, not a stock trading ban.Positioning Claims · 114 wordsThere has been a real bipartisan effort to ban Members of Congress from trading stocks and profiting off their insider information. I have supported those efforts for years. Last year, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced a strong bipartisan bill that would actually ban stocks, not pretend to do so.¹ Senate Republicans didn’t want it. The Senate GOP let their counterparts in the House take out all of the ban’s teeth and fill it with poison pills so it could never pass. This bill has no reform, no accountability, no substance. Republicans want to explicitly allow Members to continue trading stocks in privately held companies, including in companies the Members oversee; ²Positioning · 6 wordsa formula for disaster and corruption.Positioning Reasoning · 12 wordsThat is as clear a conflict of interest as one can imagine. Claims · 79 wordsUnder the Republican bill, Members would still get to own and sell stocks, and most importantly, this bill doesn’t do anything--anything--to stop Donald Trump from trading stocks.³ I guess Republicans forgot that Trump has made nearly 30,000 stock trades in the past year and raked in billions--more than all of Congress combined.⁴ Democrats have offered multiple bills that would close all these loopholes. Republicans have done nothing to stop corruption; not in the White House, not in Congress, nowhere. Positioning · 16 wordsThe Republican toothless stock trading bill is as ineffective as a screen door on a submarine.Positioning Procedure · 3 wordsLet’s be clear: ProcedureClaims · 30 wordsThey don’t even want it to pass. They designed the bill to fail. They loaded their legislation with poison pills that they knew would make this bill dead on arrival. Positioning · 11 wordsThey are even afraid of this wet noodle, weak milquetoast bill.Positioning Claims · 64 wordsThe voting restrictions in this bill and the voting restrictions that they added as a poison pill are more extreme than any law in any State. It would make voting more difficult in every State than it is now. They are some of the most twisted, radical schemes Trump has ever dreamed up to rig our election.Motive imputed Republicans know no one wants these provisions, Reasoning · 9 wordsso they included them to kill their own bill. Claims · 16 wordsThis hollow bill isn’t a stock trading ban; it is Republicans’ last-ditch effort to save face. Reasoning · 28 wordsIf Republicans’ closing pitch is a bill that would let them continue to profit off their office and allow Trump to rig the election, that is their problem. Claims · 4 wordsAmericans don’t buy it.