From The Hill:
A Senate committee easily cleared legislation explicitly prohibiting members from profiting by trading on inside information, despite objections from some GOP lawmakers who called it unnecessary and politically motivated.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced the bill by a vote of 7-2 Tuesday. GOP Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) dissented, calling the bill unnecessary and rife with potential unintended consequences. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also opposed the bill, but was absent from the vote.
Backers of the bill agreed that lawmakers are already subject to the same insider-trading laws everyone else must follow, but maintained that it was a worthwhile exercise to make it explicit in statute that such practices are prohibited. A November “60 Minutes” report suggested that several high-ranking members of Congress might have profited personally from information obtained in the halls of Congress.
“We need to send a strong message making absolutely clear that members of Congress and their staff are not exempt,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the committee’s ranking member. “The simpler and more direct we can be, the better.”
But Coburn contended that the rush to pass such a bill was driven by a need for political cover, not the need for clearer laws.
“We’re in a rush to prove to the American public that we’re not guilty,” he said. “We shouldn’t be in a super hurry to fix it because it solves a political problem for us.”
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