In the spring of 2012, Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed into law, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act — or the “Stock Act” for short. It was in response to a “60 Minutes” report in 2011 that documented examples of insider trading by legislators and pointed out that it was perfectly legal for them to make trades based on information they received in, say, private briefings — information not available to the rest of us. The vote was beyond lopsided: 96-3 in the Senate and 417-2 in the House.
Eight years later, not a single member of Congress has been prosecuted under the Stock Act. True, former Representative Chris Collins of New York went to prison this year for insider trading, but in that case, Collins leaked news to his son about a failed drug test by a biotech company on whose board he sat. His was the kind of insider trading more commonly seen on Wall Street, and he would have been prosecuted even without the Stock Act.
