Lawmakers should be banned from trading individual stocks because of their ability to universally affect industry with legislation and their access to advance information on changes that will affect industries. For example, in 2022, just before the CHIPS Act was advanced through the U.S. Senate, Nancy Pelosi’s husband purchased millions worth of NVIDIA call options. Dozens of other members of Congress also purchased semiconductor-related stocks just prior to that bill being advanced. This is a clear example of lawmakers using their access to information and their ability to directly influence an industry via legislation to make large sums of money through stock trading. Any other person doing this would be convicted of insider trading, but lack of enforcement of current laws banning lawmakers from insider trading has led to a clear conflict of interest. Furthermore, this can also be used to the advantage of corporations who seek legislative advantages. For example, a corporation could feasibly provide exclusive information affecting their stock to members of Congress as a form of bribe to advance their interests, and the members of Congress could respond by advancing the interests of the company, which would in turn further increase the value of the stocks they would purchase as a result of the insider information they received. This makes for a self-sustaining cycle of corruption that should absolutely be disallowed and punished severely.

Yes, we can. Because again, if any person outside the legislature did this, they would be charged with a crime for insider trading. Your argument that “lawmakers are still people who can own things” relies on the premise that the act of trading stocks on the basis of material, non-public information is allowed outside of lawmakers. But that is not the case. So yes, the fact that lawmakers get away with what the common person goes to prison for is corruption. On top of that, disclosure rules do nothing to protect the integrity of financial markets when insider trading is occurring, which is the reason insider trading is illegal in the first place.

Notably, you have conceded that my argument regarding a conflict of interest is valid, and admitted that you are unable to otherwise defend your position, making your argument based entirely on “vibes.” As it stands, I have addressed the fact that disclosure does not fix the primary issue, which is that there is an inherent conflict of interest for lawmakers when it comes to trading stocks. They hold the power to directly influence stocks, and they hold the access to non-public information that allows them to inform their trading decisions in a manner that is already illegal for anyone outside the legislature. That is an issue that should be rectified.