Recent news reports indicate that Senator Rand Paul failed to timely disclose his family’s securities transactions.  The Washington Post reported that Senator Paul’s wife purchased stock in Gilead Sciences in February 2020, before the World Health Organization classified Covid-19 as a global pandemic.  The disclosure “came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.”  Given the reporting at the time about other Senators’ trades, it’s remarkable that Senator Paul’s office did not identify the omission before now.

Functionally, the current system for managing congressional securities trading does not seem to function particularly well.  As I wrote in Salon, “active trading by senators undermines confidence in government and markets.”  I continue to believe that the best approach is one suggested by Greg Shill, simply requiring members of Congress to submit trading plans much like the system for managing securities trading by corporate executives.

Given the apparent disregard some Senators appear to have for the Stock Act, it might be worth, at the very least, amending it to require Congressional Staff to forfeit any gains from purchases or sales which are not timely disclosed.  As it stands, the disclosure provisions appear entirely toothless.