BREAKING: Campaign Legal Center Files Complaints Against Three Members of Congress for Failing to Properly Disclose Stock Trades

Date
Body

Under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, members of Congress must disclose a stock trade within 45 days of the trade with no exceptions

Washington D.C. – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed complaints with congressional ethics offices against three freshman members of Congress—Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) and Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT)—for failure to comply with the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.

Despite all members and their staff receiving mandatory STOCK Act training, all three members failed to disclose their stock trades at the time of the transactions. They claim that they were unaware of the transactions, which is not an exception under the law.

  • Sen. Tuberville failed to properly disclose nearly 130 separate stock and stock-option trades together worth at least $894,000 and as much as $3.5 million. The complaint against Sen. Tuberville was filed with the Senate Ethics Committee. 
  • Rep. Fallon failed to properly disclose 93 stock trades together worth at least $7.8 million and as much as $17.53 million. The complaint against Rep. Fallon was filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics.
  • Rep. Moore failed to properly disclose 70 separate stock and stock-option trades together worth at least $70,000 and as much as $1.1 million. The complaint against Rep. Moore was filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics. 

The actions of these three members follow a troubling, bipartisan trend. Recent examples of other members of Congress failing to disclose stock trades include Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who CLC filed a complaint against earlier this year, and former Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL). This ongoing trend of STOCK Act violations shows that merely the threat of a fine is not deterring members of Congress from breaking the law.

If members are not held accountable for failing to disclose stock trades promptly, many may simply wait until their annual financial disclosures to reveal stock trades and pay nominal late fees, thereby circumventing the STOCK Act. Such a delay allows these members to avoid real accountability.

“The purpose of the STOCK Act is to give voters real time transparency of the financial interests of their elected officials that may conflict with their official duties,” said Kedric Payne, general counsel and senior director of ethics at Campaign Legal Center. “Members of Congress will continue to file late reports and defeat the purpose of the law without meaningful ethics enforcement.”

When elected officials prioritize their own financial self-interest, they are not only hurting their own accountability, but they are diminishing public trust in government. As members of Congress craft laws that directly impact the lives of all Americans, the public must be able to trust that representatives are acting in the public’s interest, and not in their own financial interest. 

At Campaign Legal Center, we are advancing democracy through law. Learn more about our work.

Issues
Ethics

Advocating for Polling Place Access in the Deep South

At a Glance

Voters across the Deep South have seen a reduced access to the polls because of mass closures of polling places. Fewer polling places results in long wait times and longer journeys to the polls, reducing access to the ballot box for voters of color and low-income voters. CLC is working with organizers to advocate for better in-person voting access for marginalized voters. 

Status
Active
Issues
Voting and Elections
About This Case/Action

Persisting problems with local election administration creates barriers to the ballot box, particularly for communities with a history of racial discrimination at the polls.

A significant issue is the restriction of in-person voting. State and local governments, now free from the Voting Rights Act of 1965’s provisions, have reduced the number of locations to vote in-person on Election Day and during early voting. In Louisiana, for example, parish governments closed a total of 126 polling places between 2012 and 2018. In Mississippi, county governments closed a total of 96 polling places between 2012 and 2018. And in Alabama, county governments closed a total of 72 polling places during the same time period.

These problems should be seen in the context of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the provision of Voting Rights Act that prevented some states from passing discriminatory voting laws. Unfortunately, many Southern localities have taken full advantage of this freedom from federal oversight to impose hard-to-spot practices that create barriers for voters of color in every election.

The removal of a polling place in a neighborhood can cause longer wait times and voter confusion when voters show up to the wrong polling place. Likewise, a lack of access to early voting reduces the opportunity for marginalized communities to vote, since marginalized communities tend to use early voting at higher rates. In the Deep South in particular, most states do not provide universal vote by mail, so the majority of voters must vote in-person to exercise their right to vote.

Before the Shelby County decision, the Voting Rights Act authorized the federal government to prevent these discriminatory practices through a process called “preclearance.” In jurisdictions subject to preclearance, the federal government would provide oversight to every change in voting policy and watch out for potentially discriminatory adverse effects. Although federal preclearance is now gone, community organizers are in the position to gather their own information to show the patterns and practices to enforce the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act. While we wait for Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act, it is up to organizers to engage in their own “community preclearance” to fill the gap by spotting and responding to issues that prevent voters from accessing the ballot box.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has partnered with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and organizers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to provide resources on expanding access to the ballot, and to advocate for better policies to increase the number of polling places on Election Day and during early voting.

Subscribe to