Nancy Pelosi supports lawmakers trading stocks if they properly report the transactions. But 3 more members of Congress failed to meet that low standard.

• Two Texas Republicans and a Pennsylvania Democrat have violated a federal conflicts-of-interest law.
• The combined trades add up to $180,000 worth of stock in financial, healthcare, and energy firms.

Two congressmen from Texas and one from Pennsylvania have joined more than four dozen of their Capitol Hill colleagues in violating a federal law designed to combat financial conflicts of interest, according to an Insider analysis of congressional financial-disclosure documents.

The newest violators of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act's disclosure provisions include the Texas Republicans Pat Fallon and Michael Burgess, as well as the Pennsylvania Democrat Dwight Evans.

These violations come as a growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat — have responded to Insider's "Conflicted Congress" reporting project by recommending increased restrictions on how members of Congress may invest their own money.

"Conflicted Congress" showed the myriad ways members of the US House and Senate had eviscerated their own financial-ethics standards, avoided consequences, and blinded Americans to the many moments when lawmakers' personal finances clashed with their public duties.

Fallon, who was late reporting up to $18 million in stock trades earlier this year, missed the deadline again in December. Federally required disclosure documents showed the first-term lawmaker was nearly two months late disclosing a purchase of up to $100,000 worth of stock in the investment firm Owl Rock Capital Corp. — weeks past the 30-day deadline prescribed by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012.

Fallon's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Federally required disclosure documents showed that Burgess, a 10-term lawmaker who serves on the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee, sold 100 shares of stock in the health insurer Cigna Corp. on November 19, when it closed at $210.51 a share. The stock's price plummeted during the following several days before rebounding in December.

Burgess certified that he became aware of the trade on November 23, and by federal law, he had until December 23 to publicly disclose the trade — but didn't do so until December 31.

He is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on health, which has jurisdiction over health insurance. His office did not respond to requests for comment about the financial transactions.

Federally required disclosure documents showed Evans sold up to $15,000 worth of stock in American Electric Power Co. Inc. on November 2. The four-term lawmaker didn't publicly disclose the trade until December 22, several days after a federally mandated deadline. Evans' office did not respond to requests for comment about the financial transactions.

A growing number of STOCK Act violations

The STOCK Act is designed to offer transparency about where members of Congress and their families are earning money outside their congressional salaries and to show any conflicts of interest.

Burgess and Evans are the 53rd and 54th members of Congress, respectively, that Insider and other news organizations have identified as failing to properly disclose their stock transactions throughout 2021 as mandated by the STOCK Act.

They include:

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California
• Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican of Alabama
• Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky
• Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat of Arizona
• Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican of Kansas
• Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican of Wyoming
• Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat of New Jersey
• Rep. Pat Fallon, a Republican of Texas
• Rep. Katherine Clark, a Democrat of Massachusetts
• Rep. Diana Harshbarger, a Republican of Tennessee
• Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican of Texas
• Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat of New York
• Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican of Florida
• Rep. Blake Moore, a Republican of Utah
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat of Florida
• Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat of Florida
• Rep. Lori Trahan, a Democrat of Massachusetts
• Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican of Ohio
• Rep. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat of Illinois
• Rep. August Pfluger, a Republican of Texas
• Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat of Colorado
• Rep. Chris Jacobs, a Republican of New York
• Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat of Virginia
• Rep. Susie Lee, a Democrat of Nevada
• Rep. Kevin Hern, a Republican of Oklahoma
• Rep. Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat of New York
• Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat of Iowa
• Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican of Ohio
• Rep. Lance Gooden, a Republican of Texas
• Del. Michael San Nicolas, a Democrat of Guam
• Rep. Roger Williams, a Republican of Texas
• Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican from Pennsylvania
• Rep. John Rutherford, a Republican of Florida
• Rep. Rick Allen, a Republican of Georgia
• Rep. Victoria Spartz, a Republican of Indiana
• Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican of Pennsylvania
• Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democrat of New York
• Rep. Mo Brooks, a Republican of Alabama
• Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican of Indiana
• Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat from California
• Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican of Mississippi
• Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican of Texas
• Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican of Virginia
• Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican of Georgia
• Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican of Tennessee
• Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat of Washington
• Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat of New Jersey
• Rep. Jim Hagedorn, a Republican of Minnesota
• Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat of Vermont
• Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican of California
• Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat of New Jersey
• Rep. David Trone, a Democrat of Maryland

Some federal lawmakers voluntarily abstain from trading stocks. Others trade only in bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other garden-variety investments.

Members of Congress who want to formally disassociate themselves from their personal investments can ask their chamber's ethics committee to approve the creation of a qualified blind trust, though Insider found only a handful had done so.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia, is poised to introduce new legislation barring his colleagues and their spouses from holding or trading individual stocks while they're in elective office — a stance that puts him in league on this issue with McCarthy and at odds with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

Pelosi pushed back against barring sitting lawmakers from trading stocks last month when asked about the "Conflicted Congress" findings, though many in her party — and a burgeoning chunk of voters — disapprove of elected officials getting rich off insider information.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and a prospective Pelosi successor, would not commit to supporting legislation banning stock trading when asked about it on January 11 by Insider.

"I support continuing to make sure that everyone complies with the law as it is right now," Jeffries said. "I'm unfamiliar with the legislation. It hasn't been presented to me. Nobody has talked to me about it. And, of course, I'm open to having any conversations with any members."

Legislation titled the Ban Conflicted Trading Act, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat of Oregon, and in the House by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat of Illinois, would separately bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

In a December survey of voters conducted by the conservative group Convention of States Action, 76% of respondents gave a thumbs-down to lawmakers and their spouses trading stocks — with the opinion that those individuals had garnered an "unfair advantage" in the stock market — while only 5% of respondents said they were fine with the practice.