Insider-trading bill is a solid investment in accountability

It appears that the approval rat- ing for Congress had to drop into the single digits until a law that would ban insider trading by members of Congress, their staffs and other Washington insiders could gain momentum.

Last week the Senate, by an overwhelming and bipartisan majority, passed and sent to the House a bill that is so obviously fair in its intent that the surprise is that even three senators voted against it. The bill is also necessary if Congress is to have even a fighting chance of convincing the American people that it exists for the nation’s betterment, not the enrichment of congressmen.

That similar bills have been rattling around congress for years but could gain no traction until a “60 Minutes” segment on CBS last year is a sad commentary on the ability of Congress to do what’s right without prodding.

Indeed, had the House under the leadership of Speaker John Boehner taken the initiative, the bill could already be headed for President Barack Obama’s desk for his signature.

A long-standing Democratic measure, sponsored by Reps. Louise Slaughter of New York and Tim Walz of Minnesota, has 282 sponsors but was blocked from coming to a vote by leadership. It takes only 218 votes to pass a bill in the House if all members are present; fewer if some are absent.

Now, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., says he’s working on a bill that will be even stronger than that of Slaughter and Walz.

That sounds reassuring to the public, but Walz is wary. He implored Cantor and Boehner to resist drafting something behind closed doors, and more specifically to not write a bill that wouldn’t pass muster with the Senate.

Inserting a poison pill into legislation that one side or the other doesn’t want to see passed is hardly a new tactic, or one exclusive to either party. In this case, Boehner’s antipathy toward past efforts to get an insider trading bill through Congress is enough to give supporters of the measure pause.

Two reasons to act

There are two overriding reasons for Congress to take the need for self-regulation seriously. One is that a nation that can no longer trust its representatives to pursue anything but their own self-interest cannot long survive as a democracy. The other is that investors large and small must have confidence that they are operating on a level playing field, or a nation cannot prosper under capitalism.

There are laws against insider trading by anyone — that is investing based on material, nonpublic information about a security. The new bill would prohibit members of Congress and federal employees from trading stocks based on nonpublic information obtained on the job. It would also attempt to rein in the dissemination of information between congressional staffers and people working in what has come to be known as the “political intelligence” industry.

The Senate bill includes provisions for periodic publication of investments made by members of Congress.

There is nothing in the Senate bill that should offend any member of Congress or the administration — the nay votes of Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., notwithstanding.

If Cantor can’t bring himself to give two Democratic sponsors of the House bill credit for seeing where the House should go before he could, the least he should do is bring a strong and viable bill to the House floor with a minimum of delay — and before another newspaper or network exposes the ways in which some members of Congress have gone to Washington to do good for the people, but instead did very well for themselves.