Earlier this year, President Obama pushed for, and actually got, Congress to pass stricter rules about members of Congress using special knowledge to make moves on investments. For just about everyone else, this was already illegal under insider trader regulations, but now there are stricter regulations that apply just to Congresscritters. The bill was later amended to include many members of the Executive branch, on the likely theory that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. So, in response to several investigations about possibly Congressional malfeasance, on April 4, the
Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law very quickly by Barack Obama. Today, after an investigation by CNN, another law to supplement that law passed. Specifically, it prohibits family members of the above from
trading on the same kind of knowledge. The Senate version of the original bill included tougher language that always included families, but the House version changed some things around and made it harder to enforce the same provision on families. This is not the only stand Obama has taken on money recently, he's also limited corporate donations to the Democratic party to just
$100,000 rather than the more traditional "How much you got?" While it doesn't bind anyone else, it does show the one thing that is lacking when it comes to money and politics: restraint
Few may remember that one of the first pieces of legislation that Obama sponsored in the Senate was the
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, he also sponsored the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008 which, actually as the name says, strengthened the law. One of the key reasons he was able to do this was because he was still a new senator in Washington and not beholden to the web of interests that are normal in DC. The laws called for tighter restrictions on gifts, reporting and more abstract gifts like travel costs and the like. More importantly, this legislation created an agency and a website so people, as in the common people like us, could actually track things that were going on and hold government accountable. It was, as they say, a big and bold move. Let's face it, it's also all the kind of legislation that voters LOVE: it's holding members of Congress responsible, it's making sure they don't personally profit more than the rest of us and it makes it look like they're actually trying to fix a tangible something rather than just suggest something that has no teeth. And the fact Obama sponsored that legislation twice is also pretty telling: he was right you gotta be new to try something like that.
The STOCK Act is also the kind of legislation that some in Congress hate and some love. After all, it now gets very tricky to determine when you have to legally disclose something and when something you know might be known by others or might be considered inside information. One of the things this bill does is say that all stock trades, either direction, worth more than $1000 have to be reported in 45 days, and any violations are a criminal offense rather than up to rules of the Congressional ethics committee, which get murky at best. For some that's all a good thing since it means there are clearer lines of disclosure and clearer penalties, and others see more problems since it takes power away from Congress to enforce discipline their own. It was even written into the Constitution that members of the Congress on their way to the chamber for a vote cannot be detained or arrested. Historical footnote, Charlie Wilson of
Charlie Wilson's War fame was advised to abuse this after he hit someone in a hit and run while driving drunk. But, before the passage of the STOCK act, the SEC had a really hard time pinning down when and where Congressional members had done this, since they couldn't investigate them like they could most people. Making this criminal means they can get help from other investigative bodies if they so need, and other means of investigation. Plus, well, it's just the right thing to do.
Obama's other big declaration that corporations will not be able to give more an $100,000 for the convention in September. Of course, this leaves other areas where said groups can give money, and Obama has all but openly asked unions to help fill in this gap, but many of them are using their money in local elections. That is, after all, where most of the members are and why unions have a "Local #xxx" as part of the national affiliation. They are local first and foremost. But, corporations not being able to give in mega money levels is principled but slightly pointless. After all, money and politics is like water and concrete: it will always find a way in through the cracks. What it does do is serve as big separation between himself and Romney, who never met a dollar he didn't like; fun fact, Mitt Romney is anagram for Mr Money Tit. Romney has practically made a zen art out of non-disclosure unless absolutely forced and Obama is playing up to the opposite of that. It would not be terribly surprising if he names all the big donors in his SuperPAC, which he was loathe to form. Of course, he did form it in the end, and sadly that's what matters. All the great ideals about how to wage a new kind of campaign will generally fall short when it comes time to defeat an opponent. All told, this is some kind of step in the future of campaign finance, but probably a small one. The Republican party is more than happy to align itself with big business whenever it can and give big tax breaks. Of course, the Democratic party isn't exactly shying away from big businesses either, when they suit each others purposes. However, shining a light always good.
After all, that's how the original STOCK Act was passed and how the new addendum came to be passed, the media shone a light on the situation. A 60 Minutes report fist brought congressional shadiness in stock trades to light, and it was CNN who found that the House version didn't cover the family members of officials and aides who were bound by the STOCK act. That's one way it's supposed to work in this country. The French came up with the term the Fourth Estate for the media since the clergy, the nobility and commoners made up the first three estates and between the four of them, they made up society and laws. It was a primitive sense of checks and balances. . .that eventually went sideways after about 1789, but the death of a monarch will tend to do that. Note, this is not the only way the American system can work, but it is one way that does. The Founding Fathers set up a government based on everyone distrusting everyone else. They also put in the First Amendment that ability for the people to distrust the government and for the people to let the government know they are distrusted. States are meant to distrust each other, congressional districts to distrust each other, and so on. We are not here to be trusted, we are here to do things and be held accountable, so thought many of the Founding Fathers. Hamilton, granted, would rather you didn't ask questions and just shut up and be in debt, but by and large, they knew honest distrust better than dishonest awe.
And it's about time we got some of that back.
So it is written, so do I see it.