Picture a city council member who puts a few thousand dollars a year into index funds and one or two individual stocks they researched on their own. They're not in the Senate, just a regular person doing their job and managing their savings. A blanket ban treats every official like a crook and forces them to give up financial freedom over the bad behavior of a few.

Surprising fact: the vast majority of stock trades by public officials are in mutual funds or ETFs, not the individual companies people worry about. So a ban would target a tiny minority while making everyone else lose financial flexibility. It’s like punishing every driver because one guy ran a red light.

We all want officials to act ethically, nobody argues with that. But banning individual stock trading goes too far — it assumes everyone in public service can’t be trusted with their own money. Most are just folks making modest investments, and we shouldn’t strip that right away over suspicion alone.