To amend chapter 131 of title 5, United States Code, to prohibit transactions involving certain financial instruments by Members of Congress.
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
ReportedReported by Mr. Paul, with an amendment
Mr. Hawley (for himself and Mr. Moreno) introduced the following …
Mr. Hawley (for himself, Mr. Moreno, Mr. Ossoff, Mr. Peters, …
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill prohibits Members of Congress, the President, Vice President, and their spouses and dependent children from holding or trading individual stocks, securities, commodities, and digital assets while in office. Current officeholders would have 180-540 days to divest. The bill also requires electronic filing of financial disclosures and increases penalties for non-compliance.
Who Benefits and How
- General public and voters benefit from reduced potential for insider trading and conflicts of interest by elected officials
- Diversified fund managers (ETFs, mutual funds) see increased business as officials must shift assets to compliant investments
- Government transparency advocates get improved searchable disclosure databases
Who Bears the Burden and How
- Members of Congress and spouses must divest individual stock holdings within 180-540 days
- President, Vice President, and families face same divestiture requirements
- Ethics committees face increased enforcement and monitoring responsibilities
- Wealthy candidates may face barriers if unwilling to divest personal portfolios
Key Provisions
- Bans covered officials from holding individual stocks, securities, commodities, and digital assets
- Requires divestiture within 180 days (current members) to 540 days (illiquid investments)
- Imposes $500 fine per violation, plus disgorgement of profits
- Requires GAO audit of compliance within 2 years
Evidence Chain:
This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
Primary Purpose
Prohibits Members of Congress, the President, Vice President, and their spouses from holding, purchasing, or selling individual stocks and other covered financial instruments while in office
Policy Domains
Legislative Strategy
"Address public concern about congressional insider trading by requiring divestiture of individual securities"
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "supervising_ethics_committee"
- → Senate Select Committee on Ethics or House Committee on Ethics
- "comptroller_general"
- → GAO
- "supervising_ethics_office"
- → Applicable ethics office (Senate Ethics, House Ethics, or Judicial Conference)
Note: Bill contains two alternative versions: PELOSI Act (original) and HONEST Act (substitute amendment) - the RS (reported in Senate) version includes both
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Securities, commodities, futures, digital assets, and derivatives; excludes diversified mutual funds, ETFs, Treasury bonds, and spouse primary occupation compensation
Member of Congress, President, Vice President, and in some cases their spouses and dependent children
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology