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by chriselles 1614 days ago
60 Minutes broke this story a decade ago.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-trading-stock-on-insid...

Due to the traction the story got, it led to the Stock Act.

But once the news cycle was over it was quietly, rapidly, and largely repealed:

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/17749...

And here we are a decade later “shocked” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

1 comments

> But once the news cycle was over it was quietly, rapidly, and largely repealed:

The substance of that article only says that the online public disclosure requirements were narrowed from encompassing all Federal and Congressional employees to only elected officials and key appointees. If you read the Whitehouse signing statement (https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/0...) linked by the article, this is more clear. Employees' disclosures were taken offline out of privacy concerns, apparently. The article is somewhat ambiguous on this point, and hints at more significant changes, but I take it as rhetoric, otherwise it would have been relatively easy to be crystal clear on these points. (Shame on the reporter, but at least such unquestioned political cynicism is non-partisan.)

Perhaps there have been subsequent amendments as well. Nonetheless, according to this April 2020 research paper, https://www.nber.org/papers/w26975, Senators have underperformed the market since 2012.

EDIT: And most obvious, if trading disclosures of elected officials weren't still available online, then websites like https://senatestockwatcher.com/ wouldn't exist.