Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Administration Committee, introduced the Stop Insider Trading Act on January 12, 2026, proposing to bar members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from buying individual publicly traded stocks while allowing continued investment in broader funds such as index funds.
Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) introduced legislation on Monday, January 12, 2026, that would restrict stock trading by members of Congress and their immediate families, a move supporters say is aimed at reducing conflicts of interest and rebuilding public trust.
The proposal, titled the Stop Insider Trading Act, would prohibit lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children from purchasing securities issued by publicly traded companies. Steil framed the effort as a response to public skepticism about lawmakers profiting from nonpublic information, saying, “If you want to trade stocks, go to Wall Street, not Capitol Hill.”
Under the approach described by Steil’s office and reporting on the bill, members would not be required to sell stocks they already own. New purchases of individual publicly traded stocks would be barred, while lawmakers could continue to invest in diversified vehicles such as broad-market funds.
The bill would also set an advance-notice requirement for sales: lawmakers would have to file a public notice at least seven days—and no more than 14 days—before an intended sale of a stock. News coverage of the proposal says violations would trigger financial penalties, and the enforcement process would run through congressional ethics offices.
Chris Josephs, identified in The Daily Wire’s report as a co-founder of the Autopilot investment app, argued that limiting trading to broader market index funds reduces opportunities to exploit privileged information. He called Steil’s approach “the most reasonable one proposed to date,” while also cautioning that previous efforts to tighten rules on congressional trading have repeatedly stalled.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who has promoted separate legislation that would go further by broadly banning members and their families from owning or trading a wider range of assets, said recent procedural pressure in the House helped push leadership to engage on the issue. She has argued that partial measures leave loopholes, saying in a prior statement that “the only way to close the loophole is to ban congressional stock trading in its entirety.”
The latest push comes after years of debate over whether existing ethics rules and the 2012 STOCK Act sufficiently deter insider trading and conflicts of interest in Congress. In 2020, several senators faced intense scrutiny over stock transactions made around the time of private COVID-19 briefings, fueling renewed calls for stricter prohibitions.
House Republican leaders have signaled support for Steil’s effort, though the timing of a floor vote and the bill’s path through committee remain subject to negotiations and potential amendments.
