Pass a Clean Stock Trading Ban for All Federal Officials

Pass a clean bill banning stock trading by every elected and appointed federal official, their spouses, and their adult children. No poison pills, no carve-outs. The corruption is too obvious to ignore any longer. Senator Roger Marshall bought $250,000 in shares of Ionics Life Sciences, the parent company of cancer drug developer Genzada Pharmaceuticals, just eight days before Genzada announced FDA clearance for human clinical trials. That clearance nearly doubled the investment's value to $500,000 by 2020. Marshall then joined the Senate HELP Committee, which oversees the FDA, and co-sponsored the Small Biotech Innovation Act to shield small pharmaceutical companies like Genzada from Medicare price negotiations. He filed his required STOCK Act disclosure more than 240 days late. This is not a gray area. And Marshall is not alone. The President has personally traded stocks he then publicly promotes. Congress has the power to end this. A clean ban, covering all federal officials and their immediate families, would close these loopholes for good. Pass it.