Editorial: The bill's due for lawmakers making bank on stocks

Boston Herald, Boston Herald on Apr 2, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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The DOGE-damners on Capitol Hill are going to hate Elon Musk’s latest target: Congressional wallets.

Speaking at a town hall in Wisconsin Sunday night, Elon Musk suggested that his Department of Government Efficiency will investigate how certain members of Congress got “strangely wealthy” despite their comparatively modest public salaries, the New York Post reported.

The deep pockets of some in Congress help explain the disconnect between those in power and the ordinary Americans who elected them to serve, and the political distaste for term limits.

Rank-and-file members of Congress make $174,000 annually, and yet scores of lawmakers who have spent decades on Capitol Hill are millionaires.

“How do they get $20 million if they’re earning $200,000 a year?” Musk asked. “We’re going to try to figure it out and certainly stop it from happening.”

It’s not a big mystery. One of the wealthiest members of Congress is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., with a net worth in the $250 million-range. And that largesse largely come from her and her venture capitalist husband Paul’s lucrative investments in companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Netflix.

The Pelosi household isn’t alone in reaping rewards from the stock market while one member serves in Congress. And Musk isn’t the first, or only, person to want the wealth spigot shut off.

For example, Texas Rep. Chip Roy has been trying to get the TRUST in Congress Act passed for years. The bill would ban members of Congress and their families from engaging in insider trading by requiring members of Congress, their spouses, and dependents to place certain investment assets into a qualified blind trust while serving in office.

“The American people should have faith that Congress is at work for the good of the country, not for their own bank accounts. For years I have been working to address the problem of stock trading in Congress, first introducing the bipartisan TRUST in Congress Act with Rep. Abigail Spanberger back in 2020,” said Representative Roy. Spanberger retired, but Roy’s back at it, reintroducing the bipartisan bill in January with Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island and a host of co-sponsors, including Massachusetts Rep. William Keating.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Iowa Rep. Zach Nunn introduced the bipartisan No Corruption in Government Act in January. It would prevent stock trading, end automatic annual pay raises, and triple the lobbying ban for Members of Congress.

A fresh fire’s been lit under some lawmakers who see public service as just that, and not a lottery ticket. But making bank is a hard habit to break, and voting “no” on such legislation is an easy way to squash attempts to end the big-bucks buffet.

Adding Musk to the mix could change all that. Alone, the bipartisan lawmakers face another uphill slog to pass such legislature. Musk’s DOGE muscle, and the public will to have a government that works for them, not those in power, could push reform over the finish line.

“We have a long road ahead to address this Congress, but we can and should fix the problem during this term. We have the will and the mandate of the American people to do this. Let’s deliver,” said Roy.

It’s about time.