Discussion · Senate
Bernie Moreno Republican
“I support this bill to stop insider trading in Congress. It stops members of Congress from buying more stocks and makes them give advance notice before selling. I oppose the Democrats' bill because it goes too far by banning lawmakers from owning any investments at all. We should pass our bill today.”
“Mr. President, so I think it is important to clear up a couple of things in no particular order. First of all, I did not cosponsor the HONEST Act. I was the cosponsor of the PELOSI Act, which was a tribute--an honor--to the Member of the House of Representatives that made grift on this job an absolute master class. Your Representative from Northern California came here almost five decades ago and has managed to build a $300 million net worth. Her Twitter account is one of the most followed accounts, as my colleague from Nebraska pointed out. So I was very proud to sponsor the PELOSI Act. In fact, it is extraordinarily similar to the exact same measure my colleague from Utah and my colleague from Nebraska have proposed, as has the Presiding Officer, my colleague from Ohio. So just to clear that up. Then the next question was: Well, why would you not sponsor a bill called the HONEST Act? I mean--my God--how do you be anti-honest? Well, that bill basically bans the ownership of all assets. You can’t even own them. So if you have mutual funds, stocks, equities, investments, you have to get rid of all of that. So, basically, that would be insane. There is no other way to look at that. The Democrats put that in place during a Homeland Security meeting which went something like this. We sat down to talk about the PELOSI Act, and they gave us 15 pages of amended documents and said: Hey, we are going to vote on this right now. And, again--I should have predicted it, honestly, because it was a tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who said: Well, you have to vote for the bill before you know what is in it. Of course, Republicans said: We are not going to vote for something we haven’t read--because, again, that is insane. But it wasn’t as insane as what is actually in that bill. Now, let’s go back to what we are really doing here tonight. We could pass this today. Tomorrow, the President of the United States could sign into law a ban on insider trading. This is a 100-percent zero issue. Sometimes we talk about 80-20 issues. There is not an American citizen--well, maybe Paul Pelosi--who would be against this. But all Americans want us to get this done, and it is very commonsense. My colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on this. It is a great bill. It says if you own stocks when you get here, you can’t buy more--so, therefore, you can’t use the information--and you can’t sell stocks without a 7-day notice period, which, in effect, eliminates any kind of advantage that you would have. It is a very good bill. It applies to all Members of Congress. We should be able to get that done. We should be able to ban insider trading without Democrats blocking that vote. My colleague, I believe, from Nebraska--if the Presiding Officer could ask him; I want to be clear--he has asked for a vote at 60; is that correct?”
Mr. President, so I think it is important to clear up a couple of things in no particular order. First of all, I did not cosponsor the HONEST Act. I was the cosponsor of the PELOSI Act, which was a tribute--an honor--to the Member of the House of Representatives that made grift on this job an absolute master class. Your Representative from Northern California came here almost five decades ago and has managed to build a $300 million net worth. Her Twitter account is one of the most followed accounts, as my colleague from Nebraska pointed out. So I was very proud to sponsor the PELOSI Act. In fact, it is extraordinarily similar to the exact same measure my colleague from Utah and my colleague from Nebraska have proposed, as has the Presiding Officer, my colleague from Ohio. So just to clear that up. Then the next question was: Well, why would you not sponsor a bill called the HONEST Act? I mean--my God--how do you be anti-honest? Well, that bill basically bans the ownership of all assets. You can’t even own them. So if you have mutual funds, stocks, equities, investments, you have to get rid of all of that. So, basically, that would be insane. There is no other way to look at that. The Democrats put that in place during a Homeland Security meeting which went something like this. We sat down to talk about the PELOSI Act, and they gave us 15 pages of amended documents and said: Hey, we are going to vote on this right now. And, again--I should have predicted it, honestly, because it was a tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who said: Well, you have to vote for the bill before you know what is in it. Of course, Republicans said: We are not going to vote for something we haven’t read--because, again, that is insane. But it wasn’t as insane as what is actually in that bill. Now, let’s go back to what we are really doing here tonight. We could pass this today. Tomorrow, the President of the United States could sign into law a ban on insider trading. This is a 100-percent zero issue. Sometimes we talk about 80-20 issues. There is not an American citizen--well, maybe Paul Pelosi--who would be against this. But all Americans want us to get this done, and it is very commonsense. My colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on this. It is a great bill. It says if you own stocks when you get here, you can’t buy more--so, therefore, you can’t use the information--and you can’t sell stocks without a 7-day notice period, which, in effect, eliminates any kind of advantage that you would have. It is a very good bill. It applies to all Members of Congress. We should be able to get that done. We should be able to ban insider trading without Democrats blocking that vote. My colleague, I believe, from Nebraska--if the Presiding Officer could ask him; I want to be clear--he has asked for a vote at 60; is that correct?