(Bloomberg) -- House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is considering banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks if his party wins control of the chamber in the November midterms and he becomes speaker, a person familiar with the matter said.
The plan could be put into effect in the package of House rules voted on at the beginning of the next Congress.
Government officials’ personal financial dealings are receiving fresh scrutiny following Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida’s announcement Monday that he will resign before his term expires amid revelations about his own stock trading on the eve of a major central bank announcement.
McCarthy’s plans -- first reported by Punchbowl News -- put him at odds with Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has said she doesn’t support banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks “because this is a free market and people – we are a free market economy.”
“They should be able to participate in that,” she told reporters Dec. 15.
Republicans have sought to highlight stock trades made by Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, even though Pelosi’s husband acted legally and within the bounds of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge, or Stock, Act.
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