US Senate blocks Republican bill restricting stock trades by Congress members

Chuck Schumer on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on Tuesday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/ReutersView image in fullscreenChuck Schumer on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on Tuesday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/ReutersSenate blocks Republican bill restricting stock trades by US Congress membersDemocrats block measure they say didn’t go far enough – and was bundled with ‘poison pill’ voter ID rules

The US Senate on Wednesday blocked a Republican bill restricting stock trading by members of Congress, after Democrats refused to advance a measure they said would let lawmakers keep their portfolios and was bundled with voter ID rules they called a “poison pill”.

The 53-47 vote fell seven short of the 60 needed to open debate on the Stop Insider Trading Act, which the Republican-controlled House passed in July. Every Democrat and independent voted no, and the failure comes five weeks before the 3 November midterms.

The bill would bar members of Congress, their spouses and their dependent children from buying individual stocks. Democrats said that falls short of a ban because lawmakers could keep everything they already own, reinvest dividends into more shares and let a spouse or child trade on their behalf.

Several also wanted the rules extended to the president and other White House officials, while others objected to the photo ID requirements for voting, which they said would make it harder for eligible citizens to cast ballots.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, called the bill “a permission slip for corruption” and said Republicans had designed it to fail. He noted that a Senate committee advanced a bipartisan ban last year and accused Republicans of ignoring it. His deputy, Dick Durbin, dismissed the “meaningless” bill as “an inadequate congressional stock trading ban” and “Republican messaging”.

Republicans said Democrats had picked politics over reform. Nebraska’s Pete Ricketts, who faces a tight re-election race, said on the Senate floor “we need to restore the faith of the American people” in Congress.

Joe Gruters, chair of the Republican National Committee, accused Democrats of choosing to “protect the swamp” over voter ID and accountability and said “voters should hold them accountable in November”.

The fight is the latest in years of failed efforts. The best known is the so-called “Pelosi Act”, introduced by the Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said it would help restore trust in Congress by banning members from trading and holding stocks. A Senate committee advanced a reworked version 8-7, with Hawley the only Republican in favor, after the name was dropped and future presidents were added, though Trump was shielded. Trump attacked Hawley on Truth Social over the vote, and the bill never became law.

Trump’s own trading has been eye-popping. The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren and California representative Robert Garcia pointed to disclosures showing more than 14,000 stock trades in his first year back in office, worth up to $1.06bn, calling the volume “unprecedented” for a sitting president. Bloomberg reported that from January 2025 to June 2026, Trump made nearly 28,700 trades, compared with 22,200 by all lawmakers combined. Nothing in the filings shows insider trading, and they do not say whether Trump directed the trades himself.

Lawmakers have faced similar questions, and a report by Common Cause found members of both parties made 13,324 trades worth $635.6m last year.

In April 2025, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Republican US representative, bought shares in Apple and Tesla just before Trump paused many of his tariffs and markets surged.

Nancy Pelosi is one of the most closely tracked traders in Congress, and Trump called her out by name in February’s State of the Union speech. Yet Republicans and Democrats were evenly split among the 10 best-performing portfolios in Congress last year, while Pelosi ranked 28th, according to an analysis by Unusual Whales.

The vote was among the Senate’s last acts before it breaks for the rest of campaign season.