Washington Post - Case studies are posted here
One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found.
The lawmakers bought and sold a total of between $85 million and $218 million in 323 companies registered to lobby on legislation that appeared before them, according to an examination of all 45,000 individual congressional stock transactions contained in computerized financial disclosure data from 2007 to 2010.
Almost one in every eight trades — 5,531 — intersected with legislation. The 130 lawmakers traded stocks or bonds in companies as bills passed through their committees or while Congress was still considering the legislation. The party affiliation of the lawmakers was almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, 68 to 62.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) reported buying $25,000 in bonds in a genetic-technology company around the time that he released a hold on legislation the firm supported. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) sold between $50,000 and $100,000 in General Electric stock shortly before a Republican filibuster killed legislation sought by the company. The family of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) bought between $286,000 and $690,000 in a high-tech company interested in a bill under his committee’s jurisdiction.
The trades were uncovered as part of an ongoing examination by The Post of the intersection between the personal finances of lawmakers and their professional duties. Earlier this year, Congress responded to criticism of potential conflicts of interest by passing the Stock Act, which bars lawmakers, their staffs and top executive branch officials from trading on inside information acquired on Capitol Hill.
But the act failed to address the most elemental difference between Congress and the other branches of government: Congress forbids top administration officials, for instance, from trading stocks in industries they oversee and can influence. The lawmakers, by contrast, can still invest in firms even as they create laws that can affect the bottom line of the companies.
“If you have major responsibility for drafting legislation that directly affects particular companies, then you shouldn’t be trading in their stock,” said Dennis Thompson, a professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and author of “Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption.” “Committee chairs especially shouldn’t be in the position of potentially benefiting from trades in companies that stand to gain or lose from actions the committee takes.”
The Post analysis does not provide evidence of insider trading, which requires showing that lawmakers knowingly used confidential information to make trades benefiting themselves. Instead, the review shows that lawmakers routinely make trades that raise questions about potential conflicts and illustrate the weaker standard that Congress applies to itself.
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Replies
Go ahead and vote! (R), (D), it doesn't really matter; it seems that they're all crooks.
You might recall the sort of folks who ran for "student office" in high school...
...Yeah, those are the same snakes who are today's legislators. The "good guys" went about life and started businesses, worked for the same company for twenty years, discovered new and helpful things, and so on. The people who are making our laws today are the ones who spent two hours in front of the mirror every day before coming to school; they were also the ones who decided the "themes" for dances, and they tattled on the kids who "colored out of the lines" in order to ingratiate themselves with the people at the school who really held the power (the administrators).
Would that we could bring back Washington, Madison, Jefferson, et al., and let them watch our national government in action for a month or so, and then arm them heavily and let them in to "clean up" at a SOTU address.
Yeah...
The whole damn government is corrupt! It stinks from the corruption! It's time to exercise the release left in the declaration od independence! The entire govt. is out for themselves and we the people are left to rot and die! The old saying the I am familiar with is (chit rolls down hill) and guess who's at the bottom folks! We the people. It's time to stop paying any tax at all! Everyone has to stop or it won't work! If the govt. is going to be brought down, then we should be the ones to do it, don't leave it to the greedy corrupt govt. They won't listen to us unless it's time for re-election, so we need to make them hear us! They are supposed to do what we tell them to do, not what they want to do! It's time we stop the corruption and these greedy azzholes because they are destroying this country and that means we the people!!! To me Romney is just as bad as Hussain! Look at who his advisers are! Rubio betrayed the people with his version of the (dream act) and so it seems the "people" are putting their trust in crooks and liars! Their all alike folks! No difference between republican or democrat. Their all just greedy corrupt, selfish little Hussain's!
Oh, this is not the half of it. Last night I saw where somewhere around 128 of them, both parties, made trades within 24 hours of meetings with administration officials in the know about new regulations that affect stocks. Yes there are many criminals in DC but lets not lose focus on the ones who want not only to get rich but to "fundamentally" change our country at the same time. The ones who are striving to change our country into a socialist/Marxist utopia are the big fish for now. All these other crooks can be dealt with after we stop them. Don't let all the side attractions distract us from the main goal.