A key Senate committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would bar members of Congress, the president and the vice president from trading stocks, after its Republican sponsor changed the bill to ensure that a divestment requirement included in the measure would never apply to President Trump.
The legislation, sponsored by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, attracted an unusual coalition of supporters, winning approval from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with every other Republican on the panel in opposition and Democrats unanimously in support.
Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the committee, tried to chip away at Democratic support by framing the measure as one that would protect a president they despise. He noted that Mr. Hawley’s original proposal would have required the president and the vice president to divest starting in 2027.
“The substitute protects Donald Trump; the original bill does not protect Donald Trump,” Mr. Paul said. “I hope everyone will think about that. I would oppose the substitute change because I think it should apply to everybody or nobody.”
The measure’s fate was uncertain given the degree of Republican opposition. A White House official said substantial questions about the legislation remained.
Mr. Trump himself was noncommittal about the bill on Wednesday, telling reporters at the White House: “I like it conceptually. I don’t know about it, but I like it conceptually.”
Under Mr. Hawley’s new version, rules included in the bill that would force elected officials to get rid of certain investments would not kick in until the start of their next term — meaning they would never apply to Mr. Trump. The trading ban, however, remained the same. (An amendment introduced by Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, seeking to exempt the president and vice president from the stock trading ban failed.)
Democrats on the panel said the issue of barring congressional stock trading was so important that they did not mind supporting a version that would partially exempt Mr. Trump.
“The American people think that all of us, Democrats and Republicans, are using our positions and our access to enrich ourselves,” Senator Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, said. “People don’t believe that we are here for the right reasons.”
Later, she said she did not mind supporting imperfect legislation on the issue — even if it included Republican gimmicks to protect Mr. Trump.
“You gotta start somewhere,” she said. “I’ll take what I can get. People have the worst perception of corruption up here.”
Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, dismissed the timing tweak as “a minor change” to legislation that he broadly supported.
Proposals to ban individual stock trading by members of Congress have gained traction on Capitol Hill in recent years as public outrage has grown over the practice and lawmakers in both parties have sought to appeal to growing populist sentiment. The idea has drawn a diverse group of supporters, from Representative Chip Roy, a far-right Texas Republican, to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York Democrat.
But lawmakers are reluctant to regulate themselves, and the effort has stalled repeatedly despite broad public backing.
More than 80 percent of voters support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, according to public polling. A 2022 New York Times investigation found that nearly 20 percent of lawmakers, including Democrats and Republicans, bought stocks that intersected with their work on congressional committees.
The issued picked up steam again this spring, after Mr. Trump said he would sign such a bill if it made its way to his desk. It was then that Mr. Hawley reintroduced the legislation he had been championing for years.
“Members of this body are privy to information that the normal person just is not,” Mr. Hawley said on Wednesday. Later, he added, “I don’t mind anyone being rich; what I mind is people getting rich while they’re here, trading stock.”
But many of his Republican colleagues said the legislation was unnecessary and would have the unintended consequence of dissuading successful people in the private sector from wanting to serve in public office.
“We make it very unattractive for people to step up to the plate and run for office,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said, describing the bill as “legislative demagoguery” and arguing that it should be called the “Career Politician Protection Act.”
And because laws against insider trading already exist, he said, it was a “completely unnecessary piece of legislation.”
Mr. Paul, who vehemently opposed the bill, said it was notable that Republicans wanted to time the bill so that it would not affect Mr. Trump.
“When you hate something so much you don’t want to apply it to your president, maybe it’s a bad provision,” he said.
Shawn McCreesh contributed reporting.
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership.
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