WASHINGTON — Recent allegations of lawmakers potentially benefiting from personal stock market trades has propelled new interest in reigning in their ability to trade or own individual stocks while in office.
Dozens of lawmakers have come out in support of competing but similar bills that would limit their ability to hold or trade stocks while in office, perhaps requiring them to put any stocks into a blind trust before being sworn in.
The issue has drawn bipartisan support and opposition, rather than along the usual party-line divide. Most of the support has been driven by lawmakers, Democratic and Republican, who were elected in the past five years, with longer-tenured lawmakers generally noncommittal or less supportive.
