Ban On Insider Trading By Lawmakers Passes House, Heads To Obama's Desk

By a nearly unanimous vote this morning the House passed the STOCK Act, which as NPR's Tamara Keith has reported, "would, among other things, explicitly ban insider trading for members of Congress and their staffs."

The vote was 417-2, with 14 members absent. The two nay votes were from Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., and Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Ga.

The bill passed the Senate by a 96-3 vote last week (the nay votes came from Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Richard Burr, R-N.C.). President Obama is planning to sign it into law.

As Tamara reported for All Things Considered, Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Tim Walz (D-Minn.) had been working on the legislation for quite some time, but it wasn't going anywhere.

"Then, in mid-November, CBS's 60 Minutes ran an explosive story about congressional insider trading and other conflicts of interest. Almost immediately, the STOCK Act got very popular."

And in what for Congress is quite a short time, it's been passed.

CBS has posted a shorter version of the 60 Minutes report here.

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