The Stock Act

Floor Speech

Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge--no, to implore--my colleagues to support the STOCK Act and ask Speaker Boehner to bring this bill to the floor immediately.

On Sunday night, the CBS news program ``60 Minutes'' highlighted a problem of potential insider trading on Capitol Hill. Unlike other Americans, Members of Congress and their staffs are not held legally responsible for profiting from nonpublic information they gain in their official positions. It's outrageous. When I came to Congress several years ago, I couldn't believe it wasn't already a law.

At a time when Americans are understandably frustrated with bickering and gridlock here in Congress, the one thing we can do is restore their trust in the system. This legislation is a big step in that direction of restoring that trust. It's very simple. It asks that if you are a Member of Congress and receive information, you cannot trade stocks to profit from those.

It's a simple bill. I ask Speaker Boehner to allow this bill to come to the floor. Let's make sure that the American people--may differ with us on ideas, and healthy debate is fine, but they must not believe the system is corrupt and people are gaming the system.

I ask that this be brought to the floor, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for it.

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