STOCK Act To Bar Lawmaker Insider Trading Passes Senate

WASHINGTON — Insider trading by members of Congress, their top staff and executive branch officials would be banned by legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday.

A number of attempts to do other things with the bill, including banning earmarks, failed.

One amendment that aimed to make it even harder for lawmakers to profit from inside information also failed. Offered by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), it would have required legislators to divest stock holdings that could create conflicts of interest or to put them in blind trusts.

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