Great news: The Senate voted 93-2 in favor of a cloture motion on the STOCK Act, which bans Congressioal insider trading. Unfortunately, it looks like Eric Cantor still wants to kill the bill with kindness:
A House Republican leadership aide told CBS News that lawmakers will take up their version of the STOCK Act by the end of February. House Republicans plan to expand the legislation beyond the Senate bill to include non-stock investments and also include executive branch officials and employees.
"Building upon the Senate bill, this common-sense proposal will not only deal with insider trading of stocks, but also prevent all federal officials and employees from using insider information for profit in other areas in a constitutionally sound way," Laena Fallon, a spokesperson for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, told CBS News. "As Leader Cantor has said, he strongly supports increased disclosure to prevent any sense of impropriety and ensure the public's confidence and trust in our elected officials."
I call bull shit. What Cantor wants to do is to broaden the bill so as to weigh it down with irrelevancies, many of which are legitiimately controversial (rumor has it he still will include a blind trust provision).
As one of those people who has written the history of insider trading law, and will continue to do so for the next 20 years or so (God willing), I intend to make damn sure that if Eric Cantor manages to kill the STOCK Act that he will go down in history as the man who defended Congress' right to commit insider trading with impunity.
