Ilhan Omar Pressed By Constituent On Stock Trading By Congressmen: 'Where Do You Stand On This?'

2 minutes ago

During a tele-town hall on Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was asked about her position on congressmen owning and trading stocks while in office.

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Transcript

00:00All right. Thank you so much. My question is related to insider stocks trading when

00:06it comes to members of Congress. A recent poll came out that showed roughly 86 percent

00:12of registered voters support some sort of ban from members of Congress being able to

00:17trade stocks based on private information that they have. And then there are other polls

00:22as well that generally support this. Congressman Omar, what where do you stand on this position

00:28and what are you are we thinking about that long term?

00:34Yes, Nate, thank you so much. This is really a good question. It was one of the things I was

00:43first alarmed by when I got to Congress myself. I personally don't have a stock and my spouse

00:53doesn't. And I've been working with many of my colleagues. We have a couple of pieces

01:01of legislation pending where we are not only banning the member, but also banning their

01:08spouse. There's a lot of ways. Obviously, there are rules that govern the way in which we can

01:14trade stock, but the loopholes are just massive. You could be having a conversation with a friend

01:25who's a lobbyist and they can share information with you and you can direct your family. You

01:36can bring it up to your family members and they can use that information to buy and sell stock.

01:45We have situations where people have their own family members who work in this environment

01:55who are sharing that information with other spouses. So it is a really corrupt way for

02:03folks to govern. And I will end with this. To me, there is the ethical question and then there

02:11is the moral question. It is wrong for us to benefit in ways that the public who send us there

02:20can't. It is also just ethically wrong for us to be able to utilize a system that we regulate

02:29ourselves and a system that can be manipulated by legislation that we pass. You'll see

02:41people who will advocate for starting a war or putting sanctions or doing those kinds of things.

02:48And then you'll see a correlation with their stock sales and purchases. It's wrong

02:57and we should definitely get rid of it. We are working our way towards getting a buy-in

03:05from our colleagues to move the two pieces of legislation that we have. But I think the

03:12danger is because, like you said, so many of our members are our own stock. So it's going to take

03:22that 82% of the public that support us not having stocks to be loud about that and to make it an

03:31election issue.

Ilhan Omar Pressed By Constituent On Stock Trading By Congressmen: 'Where Do You Stand On This?'

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