COMMENTARY:
I typically write my column on Sunday and send it first thing Monday morning. There are times when the lag between when I write it and you read it can cause a problem. If Democrats didn’t win the House or Senate on Tuesday, this column won’t make sense … and neither will the universe.
Democrats taking control of either side of Congress will mean a level of oversight that has been nonexistent for the last two years. They absolutely should investigate and expose the rampant corruption, and those who have wrongfully enriched themselves should pay the consequences.
But it can’t all be about looking backward.
For nearly 250 years, presidents had always abided by the norms passed on from one generation of leaders to the next. Violation of those norms would be seen as a stain on the presidency and on the man who held it.
And so, the president has never had the same legal restraint as members of Congress. That needs to change, but it won’t happen in the next two years. Donald Trump has vowed to veto any bill that would reign in his wanton corruption. Candidates seeking the office in 2028 need to come into the race with a legislative agenda to end all of the self dealing.
Before that happens, Congress needs to mend itself. According to a report by the group Common Cause, members of Congress have raked in more than $635 million on more than 12,000 stock trades so far this year.
There are seven Democrats and only three Republicans on the top 10 list of earners, with Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on top, making more than $79.8 million on more than 400 trades this year.
Is that why Democrats killed a bill this year that would have constrained their ability to make millions of dollars trading stocks on the same companies that they regulate? The “Stop Insider Trading Act” would not have done what its title claims. Members of Congress still would have been able to trade stocks, but would have been required to publicly disclose in advance when they planned to sell stocks.
To be fair, it wasn’t a clean bill. Republicans tacked on the completely unrelated issue of voter ID, giving Democrats an excuse to vote against the bill. It’s the kind of poison pill you see when neither side, including the sponsor of the bill, really wants to solve the problem
Voters need to demand better, and I suspect they will. A recent CNBC poll found that, at a time of skyrocketing prices and the infancy of another endless, pointless war in the Middle East, corruption ranked as the top issue for voters as they headed to the polls Tuesday.
A ban on stock trading should be just the start of an ethics reform package needed to stop members of Congress from getting rich from public service. It should also pass new laws to ban lobbyists from engaging in political fundraising, prohibit donations from entities regulated by the committee the member serves on, create a waiting period before ex-members of Congress can become lobbyists, and strengthen the Office of Congressional Ethics.
To be clear, I’m not saying that Blumenthal or any of the other “public servants” raking in millions are breaking the law. But I am saying the law needs to change.
Walter Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com
Walt Rubel’s opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.