WASHINGTON — Rep. Tim Walz is scheduled to testify on his congressional insider trading legislation before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.
Walz’s STOCK Act, which bans lawmakers from trading based on information they receive in their official capacities, became a hot topic on Capitol Hill after a November “60 Minutes” report on congressional trading habits. The bill had less than a dozen co-sponsors before the report; it has 153 now, including the three other Minnesota Democrats in the House.
The effort to ban insider trading has bipartisan and bicameral support at this point. Sen. Amy Klobuchar sponsored a Senate version of the bill — one of two in the chamber — in mid-November.
House leadership has begun to pay heed as well. Speaker John Boehner said last week that he supported looking into the bill but stopped short of endorsing it outright. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she supports the bill coming to the House floor for a vote.
“I would hope that it is not as necessary as the whoop-dee-doo over it makes it seem,” she said. “But I do think that we all disclose what we do and that is really important and everything that we do is a matter of public record. So it is in the public domain. So it is not so insider.”
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.
