Gov. Ron DeSantis shared his call to ban congressional stock trading through a proposal by the Florida Legislature that would ask state congressional candidates, when they qualify for federal office, if they intend to trade individual stocks while they're in Congress.
The governor requested the call while speaking at a press conference in Clearwater, alongside Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who has advocated for a ban on congressional stock trading on Capitol Hill.
"You as a voter will know what they said, and if they say no, well, when they run for reelection, they have to answer a second question: did you, in fact, trade any stocks individually while you were in Congress?" DeSantis explained. "And if they say yes, then that means they broke their word to you and honestly lied on those forms."
Gov. DeSantis mentioned the state had very little power to do anything more than that for its congressional leaders, citing Supreme Court precedent.
"What we're doing here in Florida, that's gonna help you as a voter to be able to fair it out," DeSantis added.
Rep. Luna thanked Gov. DeSantis for his advocacy on the issue.
"First of all, I just want to make it known that I fully support the governor's efforts in doing what he's doing, specifically for leading the charge on this at the state level, because as he pointed out, Nancy Pelosi's stock portfolio: 17,000% returns, outperforming Warren Buffett," Luna said.
Leading up to his remarks, DeSantis called out Pelosi, the former House Speaker, for her alleged congressional stock trading activities. The governor also invoked congressional members as a whole for shady trades.
"You'll have people get elected to Congress, having shown any investment acumen ever in their life, and then all of a sudden they become Warren Buffett on steroids," DeSantis said. "They are putting some of the biggest hedge funds in America to shame with these stock trades that have this real suspicious timing."
Pelosi, out of California, has been involved in Congress for nearly 40 years. She has gone on to be a mainstay in national politics, including serving as House Speaker from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023.
"If you look at Nancy Pelosi's portfolio, she has absolutely shattered a lot of these investment records," DeSantis added. "But it's not just that, there's a whole bunch, and it's on both sides of the aisle."
