(FreedomBeacon.com)- Many members of Congress have been accused, or found guilty, of violating the STOCK Act, and some are stepping forward and voluntarily halting personal stock trades.
One of those people is Katherine Clark, the Democratic assistant speaker of the House. In recent months, she stopped trading all stocks after it was revealed that she violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. The STOCK Act is a federal transparency and conflict of interest law that’s meant to prevent members of Congress from trading stocks on insider information they may have.
Clark seems to be taking the high road here, but it could be because she has higher political aspirations. Many have mentioned Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts, as a potential successor to Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. That, of course, wouldn’t be possible unless the Democrats retained control of the House following the midterms later this year and also if Pelosi decided to step aside from her leadership position.
Either way, federal records show that Clark hasn’t submitted a stock trade disclosure since September of 2021.
The last trades she disclosed were conducted by her husband Rodney Dowell. They included him dumping a bunch of stocks, including some in Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Starbucks, PepsiCo, Visa and Microsoft.
Dowell’s stock trade-offs happened less than a month after media outlets uncovered that Clark didn’t properly disclose stock trades her husband made before that were valued at roughly $285,000.
The couple has traded stocks on a regular basis before September of last year. But, since then, they have shifted their investing focus to U.S. Treasury notes. According to filings with Congress, the couple has purchased between $450,000 and $1 million in the fixed-income securities.
Clark wouldn’t comment directly to Business Insider about her investment choices and whether she would support a full ban on all stock trading by members of Congress, their family and staff. Elana Ross, a spokesperson for the congresswoman, sent a statement that read:
“Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark continues to make every effort to fully and transparently comply with all financial disclosure requirements of members of Congress.”
With Insider and other media outlets revealing a trove of violations of the STOCK Act recently, a big debate has ensued in Washington over banning individual stock trades by Congress members and their spouses.
A public hearing was first conducted on the matter back in April in the Committee on House Administration. Some lawmakers are trying to cobble together multiple bills into one that might be brought to the House floor for a full vote at some point in the near future.
In the meantime, Congress members must adhere to the STOCK Act’s requirements for disclosure. Clark has apparently chosen to just stop trading individual stocks altogether, and others might do the same.
After all, Insider conducted what it called its “Conflicted Congress” projected that revealed 182 high-ranking congressional staffers and at least 60 Congress members violated the STOCK Act in recent years.
