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- Sen. Elizabeth Warren is reintroducing legislation to ban lawmakers from stock trading.
- This comes as the two senators in Georgia’s runoff election face scrutiny over accusations of insider trading.
- Warren’s proposal is part of a larger anti-corruption bill that she first proposed during her bid for president.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is relaunching a bill designed to prevent lawmakers from making individual stock trades as Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler shrug off criticism over buying and selling shares while in office, Politico reported.
Perdue and Loeffler are both locked in Senate runoff races in Georgia.
The US Justice Department began an investigation into Loeffler after she sold millions of dollars in stocks in January when she received a private briefing from health officials on the novel coronavirus. Loeffler, a multimillionaire is also married to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
The investigation did not lead to charges, but Loeffler has avoided answering questions about whether or not US senators should be allowed to trade stocks when they’re still in office and recently called questions into her trading a “left-wing media lie” and a “conspiracy.”
“Look, what’s at stake here in this election is the American dream,” she said during a debate earlier this month. “This is an attack on every single Georgian who gets up every day to work hard to provide a better life for their family.”
Similarly, Perdue came under scrutiny for buying stock in a personal protective equipment company in January on the same day he got a classified Senate briefing on the coronavirus. A US Justice Department investigation was also dropped without charges.
Additionally, a New York Times analysis found that Perdue carried out 2,596 trades during his six years in office. That makes up almost a third of all trades by senators over the same time period.
Loeffler is in a runoff race against the Democratic Rev. Raphael Warnock, and Perdue is facing Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.
Warren's proposed ban on lawmakers' stock-trading is a reintroduction that's part of a larger anti-corruption proposal she initially made during her campaign for president. Rep. Pramila Jayapal has introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives.
The proposal includes creating a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress, expanding federal conflict-of-interest rules, and barring lobbyists from fundraising for political candidates.
Lobbyists from companies of which Perdue has bought and sold stock have also fundraised on his behalf, including those representing companies like Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Altria, Merck, and Bank of America.