Friday, March 29, 2024

Washington’s Bipartisan Loathing of Ethics

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It's the rare member of who (eventually) leaves office with less money in their bank account than when they first arrived in D.C. Put it down to good financial management, and even better pay, and move on, right?

Not so fast. Members of Congress have a long history of actively trading stocks. It's all supposed to be done according to the ethics rules, and all supposed to be reported.

But it's not exactly the sort of information that's easy or convenient to find (by design). Enter Unusual Whales, which produces its own reporting on congressional stock trades.  The report is long and thorough. Understanding this, the group provides the following list of key takeaways:

By analyzing publicly accessible financial disclosures, we found that a quarter of Congress actively traded up to $788M in various assets through 12,700+ transactions in 2022. Although this matches the number of transactions in 2021, the total value has dropped.

The top sectors with the highest stock investments were: Technology Services, Electronic Technology, Finance, Consumer Services, Technology for Democrats; and Technology Services, Industrial Services, Miscellaneous, Finance, Electronic Technology for Republicans.

Congress beat SPY based on total returns in 2022, as well as a secondary way of calculating based on if they traded SPY instead of the stocks they traded.

Top political traders in 2021 were not necessarily top traders in 2022.

There were many unusual trades, whether coinciding with Committee decisions or large bills themselves, resulting in large gains for politicians.

The entire report is worth a read – the table on the top stock pickers is a gem that leads to an additional table showing how each member's portfolio performed this year.

The point of all this research: genuine transparency and real accountability…two things the political class dislikes more than vampires hate sunlight.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.

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