Sen. Kelly: The insider trading happening in Congress is 'not right'
Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona joined with fellow Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia last week to lay down a marker on when their colleagues on Capitol Hill should be able to trade stocks. Never, they say.
The two Senators proposed the most aggressive option so far to ban stock trading not just by lawmakers but also by members of their immediate family: the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, which would confiscate a lawmaker’s entire salary if they break the rules.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance this week, the Arizona senator said the issue of stock trading, to his mind, is one part of being “more transparent with the American people.”
"We see a lot of information that the general public does not have access to,” Kelly says. “And it's not right for individuals to be elected to Congress and then be able to trade on that information.”
Kelly — a retired NASA astronaut and husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords — says his own stocks are already in a blind trust. "Not only can I not make trades, I don't even know what's in there,” he said.