WASHINGTON — Zach Nunn’s military background tells him that success in any given mission requires an understanding of the battle-space — and in the fight to ban congressional stock trading, it will always “be stacked against” those urging change, the Iowa Republican and Air Force Reserve colonel said.
Members who trade stocks may not be eager to stop, but with Donald Trump coming back to the White House, Nunn hopes momentum could shift.
“We are now working on building a bipartisan coalition of members. But this is also something the president wants,” he said, after introducing his own proposal last week alongside Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash. “And that has been, I think, the difference here. We now have an administration which is very focused on getting transparency and accountability.”
It’s a rosy take on an issue that has withered repeatedly in Congress, even as polling shows it has overwhelming public support. The call to ban members from trading or owning individual stocks — and to address the perception of insider trading — has grown louder since the COVID-19 pandemic, when lawmakers made a series of dubious trades that prompted a federal investigation.