Members and experts raised doubts Thursday about the effectiveness and practicality of placing lawmaker assets in qualified blind trusts as the House Administration Committee mulled possible reforms to congressional stock trading.
“That got panned in the hearing by everybody. It sounds like that’s not workable,” Chairperson Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said of the qualified blind trust proposal, in an interview after the hearing. “No. 1, you know what you put in, so it’s not really blind. No. 2, apparently it’s very bureaucratic and expensive. And No. 3, most people don’t have enough assets to actually get somebody to establish a qualified blind trust.”
Tightening restrictions on member stock trading has been a popular topic of discussion and many proposals have been circulated on Capitol Hill to address a perceived impropriety of lawmakers who sold off substantial stock holdings at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as many members who have since failed to properly report stock transactions.
