SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
elissa slotkin
Senate Advances Bill Banning Politicians From Stock Trading—While Giving Trump a Big Carveout
"Voters have a right to know that their elected representatives are acting in the public's best interest and are not motivated by their personal financial interests," said the general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.
Jul 30, 2025
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday narrowly voted in favor of advancing a bill that bars politicians at the federal level from trading stocks—with one highly notable exception.
As reported by Politico, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) joined with all Democrats on the committee to advance a bill to ban stock trading by elected officials. However, to get Hawley's vote, Democrats had to agree to create a carveout for U.S. President Donald Trump and to apply the stock-trading ban only to future presidents.
Business Insider reported that, as written, the legislation "would ban members of members of Congress, the president, and the vice president from buying stocks immediately upon enactment, and would block them from selling stocks beginning 90 days after that."
"It would then require lawmakers to divest entirely from their stock holdings at the beginning of their next term, and it would require the president and vice president to do so beginning in 2029—after President Donald Trump's current term," the outlet explained.
Hawley took heat from fellow Republicans on the committee for advancing the legislation, including Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who accused his Missouri colleague of demonizing the wealthy.
"I don't know when in this country it became a negative to make money," said Scott. "How many of you don’t want to make money? Anybody want to be poor?"
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said that she wished that the law didn't have a carveout for Trump, but nonetheless supported advancing the bill and she described herself as "willing to make the good work instead of waiting for the perfect."
The bill's advancement out of committee earned plaudits from some government reform advocates. Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen, encouraged the full U.S. Senate to take up a vote on the package while also explaining the proposed legislation's importance.
"Members of Congress frequently have access to nonpublic information about economic and business trends and are in a position of power to influence those trends," he said. "That is why the American public—Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike—has called for this type of legislation ever since a series of insider trading scandals erupted over the last several years."
Kedric Payne, the vice president and general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), similarly praised the bill's advancement while also explaining why current transparency rules were no longer adequate.
"To prevent corruption and conflicts of interest, CLC has long called on Congress to update the STOCK Act, which merely requires members to disclose their transactions, and fully ban stock trading by sitting legislators," said Payne. "In the absence of these stronger rules, we've seen congressional stock trading proliferate. This has led to repeated examples of ethical violations and questionable financial activity, including during global health emergencies and times of great economic uncertainty."
Payne further emphasized that "voters have a right to know that their elected representatives are acting in the public's best interest and are not motivated by their personal financial interests."
The legislation advanced by Hawley and the Democrats was originally named after Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former speaker whose highly profitable stock trades have come under scrutiny in recent years.
Even though the bill has now made its way out of committee, it still faces an uncertain future in the full U.S. Senate where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority and where Democrats would need to win over some additional Republican converts on top of Hawley. And even should it pass the Senate, it's uncertain whether the legislation would be able to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders: 'Oligarchy on Steroids' Poses Existential Threat to Democracy
"If we don't address that issue, the American people will continue to turn their backs on democracy."
Apr 27, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that Democrats lack a "vision for the future," warning that Americans will "turn their backs on democracy" if elected officials fail to tackle an "oligarchy on steroids."
Appearing on NBC News' "Meet the Press," Sanders (I-Vt.) was asked about Sen. Elissa Slotkin's (D-Mich.) recent assertion that Democrats should stop saying "oligarchy" because it only resonates with coastal institutions, and whether he's "missing a chance to speak to a wider audience."
"Well... we had 36,000 people out in Los Angeles, 34,000 people in Colorado, we had 30,000 people in Folsom, California," Sanders replied, referring to the wildly popular Fighting Oligarchy Tour he's currently on with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
"I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are. I think they understand very well," the senator continued. "When the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy."
"And these are precisely the issues that have got to be talked about," Sanders said. "Are you living in a democracy when [Elon] Musk can spend $270 million to elect [President Donald] Trump, and then becomes the most important person in government?"
Sanders called out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other super PACs "that have enormous power over Democratic candidates."
"Those are issues that we have got to talk about. That is the reality of American society today. The very rich getting richer, working-class people are struggling, 800,000 people [are] sleeping out on the streets," the democratic socialist contended.
"If we don't address that issue, the American people will continue to turn their backs on democracy, because they're looking around them and they're saying, 'Does anybody understand what I am going through?'" he added. "And unfortunately right now, to a large degree, neither party does."
Sanders urged Democrats to embrace policies like fixing the nation's "broken healthcare system" and raising the minimum wage, pointing to issues on which he is working with colleagues.
"You have Democrats... talking about Trump's movement toward authoritarianism; vigorously opposing the so-called reconciliation bill to give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1% and make massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition, and housing; opposing what Musk is doing to dismember the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Administration, making it hard for our veterans to get decent health care or benefits on time," he said.
Sanders argued that the country needs more working-class people to run for office—and not necessarily as Democrats.
"You want to run as a Democrat? Great," he said. "You want to run as an Independent? That's great, but you've got to get involved in the political process, because right now the two-party system is failing the working class of this country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Slotkin Panned Online After Claiming That Voters Don't Know What 'Oligarchy' Means
"It's condescending to say that the median person doesn't understand what oligarchy is," said one progressive strategist. "They're living it."
Apr 25, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' tour headlined with this word has drawn more than 107,000 Americans in blue and deep-red states alike. Former President Joe Biden's use of it in his farewell speech prompted a spike in Google searches. And one recent poll found that a majority of U.S. voters, including 54% of Democrats and more than two-thirds of Independents, know exactly what it means.
Yet Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) was among the Democratic politicians insisting this week that no one does.
The word is "oligarchy"—a government ruled by a small group of elites—and as experts have warned for years, the U.S. increasingly resembles one. As Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have told huge crowds in places like Nampa, Idaho and Greeley, Colorado in recent weeks, President Donald Trump's alliance with billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has made the country's shift even more obvious.
But even as evidence mounts that Americans understand that the political system has been captured by corporations and the wealthiest people—and are living their day-to-day lives with the results, including higher healthcare costs and disinvestment in public services—Slotkin told Politico on Thursday that Democrats should "stop using the term 'oligarchy,' a phrase she said doesn't resonate beyond coastal institutions."
On Bluesky, The Nation writer John Nichols said that the tens of thousands people who have packed stadiums and parks in recent weeks to hear Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez speak would disagree with Slotkin.
Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin says Democrats should stop using the term "oligarchy" because, she says, no one knows what it means. These people say she’s wrong.
[image or embed]
— John Nichols (@nicholsuprising.bsky.social) April 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Slotkin's advice for Democrats, which she dubbed her "war plan" and gave ahead of several speeches she has planned, also included a call for the party to stop being "weak and woke," phrases she said she heard in Michigan focus groups.
Her comments echoed those of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a longtime Democratic operative who told California Gov. Gavin Newsom on his podcast last week that using terms like "oligarchs" and "special interests" makes Democrats "worse marketers"; Newsom appeared to agree that people don't "understand" what an oligarchy is.
Emanuel also appeared on the political and pop culture podcast "I've Had It," hosted by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, and seemed caught of guard when Welch took him to task for his suggestion that Democrats should end their advocacy for issues that affect transgender Americans.
"That is total bullshit, that is buying into the right-wing media narrative, and I'm so sick of Democrats like you selling out and saying this," said Welch. "You know who talks about trans people more than anybody? MAGA... We've got to fucking fight. They're the gender-obsessed weirdos, not us. We're the ones who fight for Social Security, we fight for Medicare, and yeah, we're not gonna bully trans people."
Semafor political reporter Dave Weigel said Emanuel's derision of the word "oligarchy" is a clear "shot at Sanders/AOC, who keep saying it."
At one stop on the Fighting Oligarchy Tour recently, Sanders told a crowd that the enthusiasm for his and Ocasio-Cortez's message is "scaring the hell out of" Trump and Musk.
But shortly after Slotkin's comments, Ocasio-Cortez remarked—without naming the senator—that "plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle feel threatened by rising class consciousness."
Angelo Greco, a progressive strategist who works with grassroots organizations including Our Revolution and One Fair Wage, told Common Dreams on Friday that establishment Democrats' dismissal of the term oligarchy is "out of touch" and "underestimates" voters.
"Tell me that farmers don't understand what the oligarchy is when there's a consolidation of the agribusiness that impacts them. Tell me that workers in Michigan don't understand what it means when trade deals that are written by multinational corporations have led to lower wages and plant closures," said Greco. "It's condescending to say that the median person doesn't understand what oligarchy is. They're living it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular