A group of United States politicians are pushing for a ban on lawmakers being able to sell or buy individual stocks.
The Congress-based group, spanning both major political parties, has this week launched a campaign to force votes on a bill in the House of Representatives.
The bill has more than 100 co-sponsors and is bipartisan.
The effort for the votes was launched on Tuesday, local time, by Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna, and for the first step, she will need 218 House of Representatives members to sign her "discharge petition" for releasing the legislation from the control of the House Administration Committee.
The next step would be for backers of the bill to demand timely votes on passing the bill, and then sending it to the Senate.
Stock trading by lawmakers has been called into question of ethics multiple times in recent years, and this bill would see them no longer allowed to buy or sell individual company stocks and required to divest holdings.
Since the 2012 implementation of the disclosure law, Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, millions of dollars worth of trades have still been conducted by lawmakers.
“Across the country, from every political background, the American people agree on one thing: Members of Congress should not be enriching themselves with insider knowledge,” Luna said in a statement.
“This is one of the most popular, most supported issues in the entire country. Americans deserve a Congress that works for them, not for special interests or personal portfolios,” Luna said. “I look forward to working with every faction, every caucus, and every Member, Republican and Democrat, to finally get this over the finish line.”
