[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 470-471]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     STOP TRADING ON CONGRESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE ACT OF 2012--Continued

  Mr. DURBIN. Pending before the Senate is the STOCK Act, and the 
purpose is one that I support. It is a bill I cosponsored.
  The notion behind it is that Members of Congress should not use their 
public service or information gained in their public service for 
private benefit. It basically outlaws the type of insider trading and 
conflict of interest that should be a standard and will be a standard 
after this is enacted into law.
  Amendments have been proposed to this measure, and there is one in 
particular I heard about earlier and asked for a copy of. This is an 
amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Paul. It is an 
amendment which talks about Members of Congress forfeiting their 
Federal retirement benefits and the conditions under which they would 
forfeit their Federal retirement benefits. Understand that these are 
Members of Congress who have completed enough service in the Congress 
to qualify for a pension. It is my understanding that is about 6 years. 
So at a minimum of 6 years of service, Members of Congress receive some 
pension benefit. Certainly those benefits increase the longer they 
serve.
  This bill would disqualify them from pensions they have been credited 
and earned as Members of Congress under three conditions:
  First, should they decide after they have served in Congress to serve 
as a registered lobbyist. That in and of itself is breathtaking. To 
think that if a person should decide after service in Congress to 
become a registered lobbyist--with or without compensation I might add, 
for perhaps a nonprofit organization--they would forfeit their Federal 
pension. That in and of itself is unacceptable and inexplicable, but 
then it gets worse.
  This amendment goes on to say that a Member of Congress, retired, 
forfeits his Federal pension if he accepts any kind of remuneration, 
which could be a salary, a consulting fee, even an honorarium for 
giving a speech, from any company or other private entity that employs 
a registered lobbyist.
  Think about that for a second. If a retired Member of Congress in 
Illinois should give a speech to a gathering of the management of 
Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria about their experience in 
Congress and their views on issues in Washington, give a speech and 
receive any compensation for giving that speech, they would forfeit 
their Federal pension because Caterpillar has a paid lobbyist in 
Washington.
  Then it gets worse. The third provision says that a retired Member of 
Congress would forfeit their pension if they accept that remuneration 
from any company or private entity that does business with the Federal 
Government. Is using the mail service doing business with the Federal 
Government? Would most businesses in America, therefore, be doing 
business with the Federal Government because they use the mail service? 
If so, if I take compensation from that company, I forfeited my Federal 
pension?
  What is the purpose of this, other than just to basically harass 
Members of Congress in their retirement?
  There are certainly situations where a person could forfeit their 
pension based on misconduct, for example, or convictions for crime. 
That is understandable. But this has gone way too far. I hope Members 
of the Senate will read this amendment--it is very brief, two pages 
long--and in reading it realize this is something that should not be 
offered and if offered should be defeated. It does nothing to make this 
a better place to serve. It raises serious questions about the rights 
of individuals who have served the Nation in Congress and what they are 
going to do after they leave the service of the United States.
  I urge my colleagues to defeat the amendment offered by the Senator 
from Kentucky and I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the STOCK 
Act. I wish to start by thanking the leaders on the floor, Senator 
Lieberman and Senator Collins, for their hard work and leadership in 
bringing this bill to the floor. There should not be any question that 
Members of Congress should be held accountable to the same laws to 
which every other American is held.
  That is why in November Senator Gillibrand, Senator Tester, and I 
introduced the STOCK Act to prohibit Members of Congress from engaging 
in insider trading. This bill is common sense. The American people 
deserve to know that their representatives in Congress are doing what 
is right for the country and not trying to strike it rich by trading on 
insider information.
  My constituents are certainly wondering why this isn't law already, 
and that is a good question. It certainly is a question I asked myself 
last year when there were news reports raising this issue, and I was 
very pleased to join immediately with my colleagues to put forward this 
legislation to make it absolutely clear that insider trading by Members 
of Congress is in violation of the law.
  I wish to thank, as I indicated before, the Senator from Connecticut 
and the Senator from Maine for moving this bill through their committee 
and bringing it to the Senate floor. I appreciate very much the vote of 
93 Senators who voted last night to move the bill forward. I think it 
is a very important example of bipartisan support. I hope we will be 
able to move this forward to a simple up-or-down vote this week and 
that we will not see extraneous issues or obstruction or delay 
involving this bill. This is very simple and very straightforward. I am 
hopeful we will be able to move it forward and accomplish this goal.
  We need to make sure it is very clear that the same laws to which 
everyone else adheres are held to be true for Members of Congress. It 
is also important to note that our bill creates new reporting 
requirements for Members of Congress and their staffs, with the reports 
available online, with a searchable database. That is very important 
for transparency. It asks the Government Accounting Office to 
investigate the so-called ``political intelligence consultants'' who 
contact Members and staff to get information on how legislation could 
affect their business clients or stock prices.
  This bill is very simple and very clearcut. We are all engaged in 
conversations on a daily basis that make information available to us, 
and we need to make it very clear as to our responsibilities for 
handling that information and operating in the public interest.
  So I am hopeful we will be able to keep this bill focused on the 
intended goal so we can actually get it passed, get it over to the 
House, and have the House do the same. It is important that while there 
may be a number of

[[Page 471]]

different issues we all care about that we would like to offer through 
amendments, we will be able to keep this focused on the issue in front 
of us and that we will be able to get this done as quickly as possible.
  Our constituents are certainly looking to us to be able to do this. 
It would be an excellent way to start the new year by working together 
on a bipartisan basis to close a loophole that has created confusion 
about the responsibilities, the ethics, and the legal responsibilities 
for Senators as it relates to insider information and potential insider 
trading.
  So I am hopeful we can get this done. I appreciate the work of 
everyone who has been involved in helping to get us to this point. 
Hopefully, by the end of the week we will have something passed that we 
can all feel very good about.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, how many amendments are pending?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 15 amendments pending.
  Mr. REID. We started this morning at about 11 o'clock. We had to 
invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill, which was 
supposedly a bill everyone wanted. It is too bad we had to invoke 
cloture on the motion to proceed, but we did. We have been working all 
day to set up rollcall votes--all day. We thought we had one a few 
minutes ago, but a couple Senators came over and said: There will not 
be a vote on that unless I am guaranteed votes on mine--even though 
their votes are totally not relevant or germane to the subject matter.
  I appreciate Senator Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins. They are 
fine legislators. They understand what this body is all about and how 
important this legislation is and how important they are as managers of 
this bill. So they are negotiating on several of the amendments.
  But at some point, Mr. President, this becomes ridiculous. To have 
Senators come over here and say they are not going to allow a vote on 
an amendment unless they are guaranteed votes on nongermane, 
nonrelevant amendments? Then people criticize me for not having an open 
amendment process? It becomes a circus. This is not the Senate that we 
have had or should have. At some point, we need cooperation from 
Members on both sides of the aisle to set up votes and dispose of these 
amendments and move on to passage of the bill.
  I do not want to have to file cloture on this bill. I just want to 
alert everyone, if we continue the way we are going, where people are 
saying: You cannot have a vote on any amendment unless I am guaranteed 
a vote on my nongermane, nonrelevant amendment--what am I supposed to 
do to protect this body?
  So I would hope the night will bring some common sense to some 
Senators. It is really--I will not say embarrassing, but it is a little 
bit, to these two fine Senators who have worked together for years on a 
bipartisan basis on some of the most sensitive issues this country has, 
protecting the homeland. We could not have two better people working on 
a bill to create some bipartisanship. But this is unfortunate and 
unfair and not right, and I, as the leader, am not going to let this 
continue forever.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the leader for his statement 
and thank him for his patience. I know people are critical of the way 
Senator Reid has been forced to operate to try to get anything done, 
but if you go through a day like we have gone through, you understand 
why he has had no choice.
  Mr. Paul, the Senator from Kentucky, offered an amendment. We had a 
very thoughtful negotiation with him about modifying the amendment. We 
came to a meeting of the minds and were ready to go, and then another 
Member said: I will not consent to you voting on Senator Paul's 
modified amendment unless you promise me a vote.
  As Senator Reid well knows, in the early years I was here this kind 
of behavior sometimes happened at just before the final vote on a bill 
or perhaps before a recess was about to be declared. But to conduct 
oneself in this way at the very beginning of a debate on a bill about 
which there is bipartisan support--yesterday, it was clear on the 
cloture motion, only two Senators voted against it. It is a real good 
government bill, and to hold it up in this way is frustrating.
  I quote the majority leader, who is a straighter talker: It is 
ridiculous.
  So at the end of a long day, we have nothing to show for our labor. I 
apologize to the Members of the Senate. But it requires some 
reasonableness from our colleagues to proceed.

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