Nancy Pelosi has been trading stocks in Congress for thirty-seven years and nobody stopped her.
House Republicans just forced every Democrat in Washington onto the record with one bill.
198 of them just handed the GOP its best campaign ad of the election cycle.
Stop Insider Trading Act: What the Congressional Stock Ban Does and Does Not Do
H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, passed the House by a vote of 232 to 198.
Under the bill, no member of Congress could purchase a new individual stock while serving – and that restriction covers their spouse and dependent children as well.
Existing portfolios stay untouched – but any planned sale requires a public disclosure seven to fourteen days before the transaction.
Lawmakers caught violating the rules face a fine of $2,000 or 10 percent of the trade, whichever is higher, and must surrender every dollar they made from the illegal move.
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil of Wisconsin championed the bill and called it "a major step forward for ethics reform on Capitol Hill."
President Trump personally called on Congress to pass the legislation during his 2026 State of the Union Address.
Only 13 Democrats voted yes.
The remaining 198 – a roster that includes Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, Hakeem Jeffries, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – voted no.
The Voter ID Trap 198 Democrats Walked Straight Into
Republicans attached a voter ID requirement for federal elections to the stock trading bill, and the Democrat caucus faced a choice with no clean exit.
Vote yes and let your name appear on voter ID legislation, a provision the far-left base treats as an existential threat to its voting operations.
Voting no meant handing Republicans a campaign clip showing they opposed the only stock trading reform to clear the House in over a decade.
198 Democrats chose option two.
Thirteen Democrats defied their caucus to vote yes – among them Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Jared Golden of Maine, and Jared Moskowitz of Florida.
Their official excuse was that the bill fails to cover the president and vice president.
Democrats in the Rules Committee also voted down two separate amendments that would have extended the trading ban to the executive branch – the same gap they are now using to justify opposing the bill.
If they wanted a stronger bill, they have had fourteen years to write one.
The 13 Democrats who crossed the aisle put their names on both stock reform and voter ID – and they did it anyway.
What they now own is a roll-call vote that follows every one of them straight into the 2026 midterms.
Nancy Pelosi Net Worth: How She Built a 270 Million Dollar Fortune Trading Stocks in Congress
The most famous name on the no vote list is also the most expensive one to explain.
Nancy Pelosi carried less than a million dollars in stock holdings into Congress in 1987 and walks out today worth approximately $270 million.
Most Americans spent those same thirty-seven years hoping their 401k kept pace with inflation.
In 2024 alone, her portfolio beat the S&P 500 by nearly 200 percent – a single-year return that outperformed the world's most celebrated fund managers.
The Daily Caller confirmed her wealth grew at least 2,292 percent across 37 years in office on a congressional salary that never exceeded $223,500 per year.
Trump called for an investigation when reporters asked him about the bill: "Nancy Pelosi should be investigated because she has the highest return of anybody practically in the history of Wall Street."
When reporters asked her in 2021 whether lawmakers should be banned from stock trading, Pelosi told them America is a free-market economy and Congress members should be free to participate – an answer that earned ridicule from anyone who noticed she was receiving classified briefings, writing the laws, and picking the winners at the same time.
She voted no on a bill that would have stopped the next generation of lawmakers from running the same play.
The STOCK Act of 2012 was the last time Congress acted on this – and that law imposed a $200 fine for violations while producing exactly zero prosecutions in fourteen years.
H.R. 7008 now heads to the Senate, where Chairman Steil has already called on his colleagues to take it up and send it to President Trump's desk.
Republicans will spend the next four months reminding voters in every competitive district that when Washington finally moved against congressional insider trading, 198 Democrats looked at their brokerage accounts and voted no.
Sources:
- House Administration Committee, "House Passes Chairman Steil's Stop Insider Trading Act," House Administration Committee Press Release, July 22, 2026.
- Congress.gov, "H.R. 7008: Stop Insider Trading Act," Congress.gov, July 22, 2026.
- Daily Caller News Foundation, "Prolific Stock Trader Nancy Pelosi Assures Us She's Not In Congress For Money," The Daily Caller, February 26, 2026.
- The Washington Times, "The Pelosis, Insider Trading and the Art of Getting Rich in Congress," The Washington Times, August 1, 2025.
- Revolver News, "Republicans Laid a Sneaky Trap for Dems, and 198 of Them Walked Right Into It," Revolver News, July 23, 2026.