Tom Delay's Inside Trader? (Hello, SEC?)
Via Daily Kos, the Wall Street Journal reports today on an effort to shut down insider trading in Capitol Hill offices:
Amid broad congressional concern about ethics scandals, some lawmakers are poised to expand the battle for reform: They want to enact legislation that would prohibit members of Congress and their aides from trading stocks based on nonpublic information gathered on Capitol Hill.
Two Democrat lawmakers plan to introduce today a bill that would block trading on such inside information. Current securities law and congressional ethics rules don't prohibit lawmakers or their staff members from buying and selling securities based on information learned in the halls of Congress.
It isn't clear yet what kind of support the bill will garner from Republicans. But its prospects are enhanced by the current charged environment in Congress; lawmakers from both parties in both houses have placed a high priority on passing ethics and lobbying-reform legislation. Such legislation would provide a vehicle to which proponents could attach a measure on stock trades.
. . .
The two Democrats who wrote the bill say they were motivated by the trading activity of a former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, the onetime Republican majority leader in the House. The aide, Tony Rudy, bought and sold hundreds of stocks from his computer in the U.S. Capitol in 1999 and 2000, according to financial-disclosure forms and other DeLay aides.
Recall that miscreant Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has also been implicated in this game.