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Proposed ‘Pelosi Provision’ of the STOCK Act unveiled yesterday.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  February 8th, 2012 at 06:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The STOCK Act – which is short for the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act; honestly, I wish that they’d stop coming up with cute names for these. This particular one is not really obnoxious, but some of them have really reached for the acronym – started to get really pushed through last year, once it came out that Members of Congress, including then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, were profiting unduly from legal insider trading*. I call it ‘legal’ not in the sense that there was nothing wrong with said insider trading; I call it ‘legal’ because Congress exempted itself from the rules that the rest of us have to follow. The distinction is important. It’s perfectly legal for, say, Senator Dianne Feinstein to buy into a biostock company just before the company picks up a fat government subsidy check, even if she knew about it ahead of time. That’s the problem.

Anyway, one of the more egregious things being done – again, involving then-Speaker Pelosi in at least one case – was the practice of offering Members of Congress a favorable position from which to buy into an IPO. Pelosi in particular used this practice to buy into a Visa IPO, right before credit card legislation that hampered Visa got somehow sidetracked in Congress for a year; she ended up making a killing on the (again, ‘LEGAL’) deal. And, naturally, the amendment that would ban this practice in the future has been named the ‘Pelosi Provision’ by Republicans. By all accounts, the former Speaker is unhappy about this; I am uncertain whether or not that she is as unhappy about this as I am that the woman made several million unfortunately-legal dollars off of her former position to manipulate and delay legislation, but I somehow doubt it.

The bill is largely expected to pass, by the way: the real fireworks will be in conference. If the thing gets defanged, it will be there – so keep an eye out for that particular problem. It wouldn’t be the first time that a troublesomely reformist piece of legislation got revised out of existence, while out of camera range…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Politico reports that the STOCK Act’s original sponsors Louise Slaughter and Tim Walz are unhappy that the Republican majority has taken away their bill and are now busily reshaping it. Alas for Rep. Slaughter, it’s not exactly Eric Cantor’s fault that she was incapable of getting it passed in the first place…

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  • macwell

    We men have enough pigs at the trough, you women have to take the hit on old Nancy.
    She IS what is wrong with OUR Congress.
    Career politicians have been using the “good old boys club” mentality on the US tax payer for too long. These so-called representatives who trade their votes like baseball cards, and lie to us, steal from us, and make fools of us daily, must be thrown out and replaced with the model the founders left us, citizen government.
    If we had a cross section of Americans in Congress, instead of mostly lawyers, then maybe we’d be represented. If you are a lawyer, don’t worry, they have your back, if you’re a regular citizen, then all you’re good for is they’re next election.
    We must rid DC of career politicians if we’re serious about saving this Republic.
    Congress was never meant to be a career!

  • sharrondeer

    Unfortunately, the bill been partially “defanged” in the House even before it goes to conference. Let’s hope that the removed provisions get restored in conference or insider trading will continue in DC.

  • weyland

    …Chuck Grassley doesn’t seem to be too happy:

    “It?s astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street?s wishes by killing this provision. The Senate clearly voted to try to shed light on an industry that?s behind the scenes. If the Senate language is too broad, as opponents say, why not propose a solution instead of scrapping the provision altogether? I hope to see a vehicle for meaningful transparency through a House-Senate conference or other means. If Congress delays action, the political intelligence industry will stay in the shadows, just the way Wall Street likes it.”

    http://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/Article.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1502=38946

    Business as usual at the trough, eh?

  • guest1776

    Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York, March 2, 1930.

    (Per text in his Public Papers and Addresses, 1938, I, 569—also New York Times March 3, 1930)

    The doctrine of regulation and legislation by “master minds,” in whose judgment and will all the people may gladly and quietly acquiesce, has been too glaringly apparent at Washington during these last ten years. Were it possible to find “master minds” so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost god-like in their ability to hold the scales of Justice with an even hand, such a government might be to the interest of the country, but there are none such on our political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversal of all the teachings of history.

    Now, to bring about government by oligarchy masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our National Government. The individual sovereignty of our States must first be destroyed, except in mere minor matters of legislation. We are safe from the danger of any such departure from the principles on which this country was founded just so long as the individual home rule of the States is scrupulously preserved and fought for whenever it seems in danger.

    Speaks volumes. Obviously FDR turned into that very “master mind” he so abhorred as Governor but since FDR the Democrats have taken this excerpt as marching orders with an agenda against not only state rights but individuals, gun rights, and now even doctor/patients etc…

    The Obama administration is full of “master minds” because they (master minds) are the ones they’ve been waiting for….just ask Obama?!

  • DaveWT4

    How about we Amend the Constitution to close this loophole altogether? Why should Congress be immune to the laws they impose on all of us? Sovereign Immunity is one thing, but the idea that the Congress can make itself above the law is just wrong!