Let's talk about Dems blocking Insider Stock Trading Act....

0:00Instagram teen accounts come with automatic protections that limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, and the time they spend on the app. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Well howdy there internet people. It's Belle again. So today we're going to talk about Democrats blocking a stock trading act.

1:01If you saw the headlines this week, there was definitely one that sounded pretty straightforward. Senate Democrats blocked something called the Stop Insider Trading Act. And yeah, that sounds terrible. Especially since Democrats have pushed for a bill to stop congressional stock trading for a long time. It's enormously unpopular because lawmakers potentially have access to information ordinary investors don't and can use that information to enrich themselves. But the fight over this bill wasn't really about whether members of Congress should be allowed to trade stocks. It was about what this particular bill actually did and what else was included in it. As surprise, the Stop Insider Trading Act had giant loopholes and exemptions. The Senate voted 53-47 on a procedural vote to move forward with the legislation.

2:04Every Republican voted yes, while Democrats and the two independents voted no. Because it needed 60 votes, the bill stalled. Well, what did the bill do and not do? The bill would have prohibited members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from buying new-covered publicly traded investments. That's what most people would shorthand as stocks. But it wouldn't have required lawmakers to get rid of investments they already owned. They could continue holding them and could sell them. Which means they could use influencing government to hand contracts to companies they owned a piece of. That became one of the objections from Democratic critics. They argued that Congress should enact a broader ban that requires lawmakers to divest covered investments rather than simply preventing new purchases. They also criticized the bill for leaving the President and Vice President outside its

3:08restrictions. Because of course, Republicans wanted to exempt the President that traded more stocks during just his second term. So far, then every other President since 2000 combined. Instagram teen accounts come with automatic protections that limit who can contact teens. The content they can see and the time they spend on the app. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Hip hop ball is back. So, Hilton called on me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oho, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwick up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay.

4:11Hilton, for this day. And there's some important history here. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had previously advanced a different bipartisan stock trading bill based on the Ethics Act. That proposal backed by Democrats and some Republicans like Josh Hawley went a lot further. It would have banned members of Congress, the President and Vice President from buying and selling covered investments and required those elected officials, their spouses, and dependent children to divest covered investments. So, Democrats weren't arguing that Congress should simply leave the existing system alone. They could point to a broader bill that had already received bipartisan support in a Senate committee. But there was another major problem with the new Stop Insider Trading Act.

5:13The House passed bill also contained a National Voter ID requirement for federal elections. Democrats opposed that provision because its requirements would severely restrict mail-in voting and make voting more difficult for some eligible voters. That meant Senators weren't simply voting on whether members of Congress should trade stocks. They were voting on a package, combining stock trading restrictions with a major change to federal election law. The process of adding an unrelated and controversial provision right around an election is known as a poison pill. And is generally done because the party doing it believes their base is too dumb to understand what happened. So yes, Senate Democrats blocked the Stop Insider Trading Act. But saying Democrats blocked a ban on congressional insider trading, Mrs. Important Context.

6:17Democrats rejected a weak bill that exempted a lot of bad behavior with investments. And then Republicans also tacked on unrelated and unpopular legislation too. They knew it wasn't going to pass when they did it. My guess is, Republicans never wanted it to pass because they want to keep trading stocks. Republicans in the House passed a bill that essentially took an issue with substantial bipartisan support, combined it with a major partisan fight over election law, and ended up producing another party line fight in the Senate. Anyway. It's just a thought. We all have a good day.

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