The United States of Stocks

If you were anxiously buying and selling stocks in the wake of the Liberation Day market meltdown, you weren’t alone.

A Wall Street Journal analysis found that members of Congress didn’t let the geopolitical crisis stop them from earning serious gains in their personal portfolios. In fact, from April 2 to April 8, as the market experienced its steepest drop since March 2020, more than a dozen members of Congress and their family members made over 700 trades.

Ironically, two members of Congress who have been the most vocal about banning stock trading in the government were buying and selling at a rapid rate: Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Rob Bresnahan (or close members of their family) carried out the most transactions over the period.

In their defense, they both told the WSJ that their financial advisors were at the wheel, and they weren’t personally buying and selling the stocks.

Republicans Jefferson Shreve, Michael McCaul, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as Democrat Julie Johnson were the other most active members making trades, and all told the WSJ an outside money manager was conducting the transactions.

What was Congress buying? The most popular stocks purchased by members of Congress in the days between Liberation Day and the tariff pause were MKS Instruments, Amazon, and Global Payments. Meanwhile, our elected representatives were selling shares of Honeywell, Accenture, and Visa.

Liberating Congress from picking stocks

You might be wondering: How is it legal for our country’s leaders, who are naturally privy to vast amounts of inside information, allowed to have a Robinhood account just like the rest of us?

A slew of bills have been proposed over the years that would ban congressional stock trading and require politicians to hand their portfolios over to blind trusts, but as of now, no new laws that fully end the practice have been passed.

Polling shows that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike support making active trading illegal for members of Congress.—LB

Want to learn more about this issue and also have a good laugh? Our buddies over at Good Work paid Capitol Hill a little visit to see what the heck is going on over there. Here’s what they found out.