U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., speaks to supporters during his campaign kickoff event Aug. 23, 2023, in Omaha. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)
OMAHA — The U.S. Senate appears poised to puff from the long-held public disclosure pipe dream of greater financial accountability for its members’ stock trading.
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U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., on Wednesday proposed the Senate companion to a House proposal to limit and disclose the stock purchases and sales by members of Congress.
The timing is noteworthy: Senate Republicans let Ricketts carry the bill as the former two-term governor faces his toughest general election test against registered nonpartisan Dan Osborn.
So is the messenger: Ricketts’ family built TD Ameritrade, an Omaha-based international business that gave more people the ability to trade stocks, where he was an executive. The family eventually sold it to Charles Schwab.
Ricketts’ proposal would ban stock purchases by representatives and senators, spouses and dependent children while the member is in office and require 7 to 14 days’ notice before a stock sale.
The sales portion of the bill, modeled on a House bill from Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, would disclose the date of the transaction, description and number of shares.
Both proposals would create a financial penalty tied to any transaction that violates the law, fining the members $2,000 or 10% of the stock transaction’s value, whichever is greater, as well as any profit from the trade.
Ricketts said he knows the proposal will garner bipartisan support and hopes he can find the 60 needed votes.
He focused particular attention on the rules forcing disclosure of stock sales before they happen. He said that a one- to two-week window would give the market time to adapt to the information.
And Ricketts said making sure Congress can’t profit is important in helping people who are spending their hard-earned money understand that investors will not be the last to know.
“We want to increase trust people have for their officials in Washington, D.C.,” Ricketts said. “We want to make sure that Congress can’t do insider trading.”
The measure would not let the member pay the fines using office or campaign funds. It does not require stocks be held in a blind trust or force members to sell stocks they already owned before being elected to Congress.
It also would not restrict the spouses of members of Congress who are stock traders as their profession, a carveout meant to protect spouses’ day jobs.
Ricketts said his proposal strikes a balance between a ban that keeps Congress from profiting from valuable information but lets entrepreneurs who invested in their own companies serve in Congress.
He said it is the next logical step to build on the disclosure foundation laid by the 2012 Stock Act, which let people learn more about who was making money while serving in Congress.
He said the goal of any legislation like this should be to help rebuild the public’s trust in their representatives. They want to know Congress isn’t getting rich on their dime.
“As members of the Congress, we get access to information because of our jobs,” Ricketts said. “We want to make sure our constituents know we’re not using that for insider trading.”
Critics have argued the House GOP measure Ricketts proposed in the Senate doesn’t go far enough, but have acknowledged that it makes progress toward limiting congressional stock trades.
Osborn spent parts of his 2024 race against U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and parts of his race against Ricketts criticizing what he calls the rigged game of politics.
He has called for changes to go farther and ban stock trading by members of Congress. President Donald Trump supported the GOP version of the bill during his State of the Union speech.
Osborn in a December 2025 post on X, wrote, “Not only do I think there should be a BAN on congressional stock trading, I think members of Congress caught trading stock should go to jail.”
Ricketts pointed to the investing success of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and GOP U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, often discussed on conservative media.
Ricketts has been a focus of some of those outlets’ reporting, including a New York Post article in January that listed Ricketts as having made the third-highest percentage of profit off stock trades in Congress in 2025, 37%.
“Congress has a low approval rating,” he said. “Part of it is the public doesn’t trust Congress, and it’s because the public perceives that we can use this information for insider trading.”
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
