Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida Fails to Disclose up to $1.6 Million in Stock Trades — Campaign Legal Center Files Ethics Complaint
Washington, D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a nonpartisan group, filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), urging it to investigate Representative Byron Donalds of Florida for failing to disclose over 100 stock trades he made that totaled up to $1.6 million, which represents a violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. This egregious violation emphasizes the urgent need for Congress to pass the bipartisan Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act to further limit violations of this nature.
Lawmakers must file Periodic Transaction Reports (PTRs) within 45 days of trading any stock that exceeds $1,000 or risk facing penalties. While Rep. Donalds and his spouse made 108 stock trades between 2022 and 2023 valued up to $1.6 million, he failed to file PTRs for any of these transactions. CLC has previously filed complaints against other Members of Congress for committing similar infractions.
“While Rep. Byron Donalds’s violations of the STOCK Act are significant, his behavior is unfortunately not an anomaly in Congress,” says Kedric Payne, CLC’s vice president, general counsel and senior director of ethics. “There is a widespread, and bipartisan, trend of lawmakers failing to promptly disclose if they engage in stock trades, which fuels more ethics violations. We urge the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate the omissions by Rep. Donalds because the public has a right to know about potential conflicts of interest their elected officials may have. Furthermore, Congress should not delay in passing the ETHICS Act, which would ban members of Congress from trading stocks in individual companies.”
While Members of Congress may have to pay a relatively small fine for violating the STOCK Act, a bipartisan group of Senators on the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security recently advanced the ETHICS Act, which bans federally elected officials from stock trading while serving in their official roles with greater financial penalties for violations relative to the STOCK Act.
Voters have a right to know what potential conflicts of interest elected lawmakers may have given their ability to craft and implement legislation. The OCE must investigate unreported stock trades by lawmakers like Rep. Donalds, while the broader Congress should work to pass legislation aimed at making congressional stock trading a more publicly transparent and accountable process.