On Tuesday, Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill called “Pelosi Act” to ban Congress members and their spouses from holding, acquiring, or selling stocks during their tenure in elected office.
Chalking out the specifics of the Pelosi Act
While other “equivalent economic interests” are included, holdings in diversified mutual funds, ETFs, or US Treasury bonds are exempted from the prohibition. While introducing the bill, the Senator for Missouri asserted that politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system “for too long” at the expense of American people.
After highlighting how Congress members “continually” buy and sell stocks that outperform the market, he said,
“While Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other, hardworking Americans pay the price. The solution is clear: we must immediately and permanently ban all members of Congress from trading stocks.”
Additionally, he tweeted that Congress members and their spouses should not be using their position to “get rich.”
It is interesting to recall that last year the US government imposed export restrictions on certain chip sales. In Q3, American multinational technology company Nvidia revealed that officials asked it to stop exporting two top computing chips for AI work to China. A few days before the voting and final call, Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi sold all their shares.
Read More: Nvidia ordered to halt AI chip sales to China, Russia
According to the bill specifics, members and their spouses will have to forfeit any investment profits to the American people via the US Treasury if they are found to be in violation if the Act. Furthermore, the bill noted,
“Members who violate the requirements will also lose the ability to deduct the losses of those investments on their income taxes. The ethics committees of Congress may levy additional fines and will publicize violations.”