[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17315]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE STOCK ACT

  (Mr. WALZ of Minnesota asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge--no, to 
implore--my colleagues to support the STOCK Act and ask Speaker Boehner 
to bring this bill to the floor immediately.
  On Sunday night, the CBS news program ``60 Minutes'' highlighted a 
problem of potential insider trading on Capitol Hill. Unlike other 
Americans, Members of Congress and their staffs are not held legally 
responsible for profiting from nonpublic information they gain in their 
official positions. It's outrageous. When I came to Congress several 
years ago, I couldn't believe it wasn't already a law.
  At a time when Americans are understandably frustrated with bickering 
and gridlock here in Congress, the one thing we can do is restore their 
trust in the system. This legislation is a big step in that direction 
of restoring that trust. It's very simple. It asks that if you are a 
Member of Congress and receive information, you cannot trade stocks to 
profit from those.
  It's a simple bill. I ask Speaker Boehner to allow this bill to come 
to the floor. Let's make sure that the American people--may differ with 
us on ideas, and healthy debate is fine, but they must not believe the 
system is corrupt and people are gaming the system.
  I ask that this be brought to the floor, and I encourage my 
colleagues to vote for it.

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