https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-blin...
> “Immediate Family” generally means any relative by blood or marriage living in the individual’s household, any domestic partner or other minor child residing in his or her household and, whether or not living in the individual’s household, any other relative with respect to whose investments the individual has influence or control.
This is not some kind lf 'goctcha, i am so smart', all accountants, bank employees and traders are subject to these industry-standard restrictions.
Congress has been explicitly exempted from insider trading regulations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203711104577199...
https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/2018/08/16/can-member...
So let's say that prior to being elected someone's heavy into telecoms for some reason. Keep the positions! Keep them as long as you want. If you want to sell, go ahead. If you want to buy back in? Sure, but index funds only.
There's still some room for abuse there but it vastly reduces the opportunity for abuse.
You’ve given us a proposal, but how do you implement it? Surely a proposal doesn’t solve anything, you have to implement it to actually solve something. So how do you implement your proposal?
Not so easy… first you need a bill to pass. It has to be put to a vote by Nancy Pelosi, who said she won’t support your solution. So you need to get rid of her: either she retires or loses reelection (unlikely) or you get a Republican speaker.
Would a Republican speaker put your bill to a vote? Certainly not after Nancy Pelosi cited “free market capitalism” as a reason for resisting restrictions. The Republican speaker can’t be portrayed as being to the left of Pelosi, who has been interchangeably labeled a “liberal communist socialist democrat leftist”.
And then there is the vote itself. Even if you get it to a vote, you are asking a group of people to take away a benefit to themselves. They are literally voting on whether to make themselves poorer. Is that going to be an easy vote to whip? Not likely.
And then if it does pass, then you have enforcement issues. There was just an issue of Congressman Collins getting convicted of insider trading for giving tips to his son. He was caught on tape. He pleaded guilty. 2 years he was sentenced. He should be serving his sentence right now. Instead he is a free man, the beneficiary of a Presidential Pardon for his crimes.
So even if you pass you pass the hurdle of the speaker; even if you pass the hurdle of the vote; even if you enforce the law on the books through the criminal justice system with courts, judges, evidence, and a sentence; EVEN THEN the powers that be will find a way to remain unconstrained by your solution. “Laws are for thee, not for me.”
So yea, we can throw out “easy solutions” all day that are really just proposals that will do nothing to solve this problem. Because this is a problem of the powerful self-dealing, and you don’t solve that through the system they use to deal themselves.