http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/22/news/economy/congress-insider-trading/The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill that makes it illegal for lawmakers and their staffs to make Wall Street trades based on insider information.
The bipartisan measure, which already passed the House, would immediately go to President Obama, who is expected to sign it. Obama called for the law during his State of the Union address in January.
While insider trading is already illegal, there's some question as to whether current laws that focus on Wall Street apply to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers and staff are encouraged to discuss pending legislation with firms that might be impacted.
The bill would clarify that lawmakers and staff can't use special information about pending or potential federal government activity to trade stocks.
I can't believe something like this wasn't already in place considering what lawmakers could know that the general public doesn't. you have to wonder how much money some of them made from knowing something big was about to happen to a particular stock due to action from the government, especially during the financial crisis.
and it only took 6 years:
The congressional ban on insider training was some six years in the making. But momentum came from a CBS "60 Minutes" piece last year, which suggested a few lawmakers had made money from inside political knowledge from the financial crisis.
