Ban Congress from trading stocks? NC Senate candidate Roy Cooper says yes

Danielle Battaglia, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Dec 16, 2025

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WASHINGTON — As members of Congress debate whether to ban stock trading, Roy Cooper, the former governor of North Carolina and a Senate candidate, announced his support for a ban.

“A lot of people just don’t trust Washington politicians,” Cooper said in a written statement to McClatchy. “That’s because too many of them look after themselves, and not the people they’re supposed to serve. But leaders are elected to serve the people they represent, not to trade a company’s stock on insider knowledge to get rich.”

Cooper said it’s “past time” to ban buying and selling of individual stocks for members of Congress and top executive branch officials.

Banning stock trades has been debated in Congress for more than a decade.

A law passed in 2012, introduced by Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Rep. Tim Walz, a Democrat from Minnesota, bans lawmakers from trading on knowledge they gained working in Congress.

But a watchdog group, the Campaign Legal Center, found that all but 6% of lawmakers owned stock or widely held investment funds in 2025, and only 2% used a qualified blind trust that allows their assets to be managed independently to avoid conflicts of interest.

All of North Carolina’s members of Congress, except for Rep. Addison McDowell, a Republican from Davie County, own stock or widely held investment funds. None are in blind trusts.

Rep. Tim Moore, a Republican from Kings Mountain who served as North Carolina’s House speaker while Cooper was governor, faced scrutiny this year for stock trades involving companies in the news, including buying and selling Intel shares in the weeks before President Donald Trump announced the federal government would enter into an unprecedented partnership with the company.

On Dec. 2, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, filed a discharge petition to force Speaker Mike Johnson to bring to the floor for a vote a bill that would ban the ownership of stocks by lawmakers.

The petition needs 218 signatures to bypass Johnson. As of Monday afternoon, it had 61. From North Carolina, only Rep. Valerie Foushee, a Democrat from Orange County, had signed the petition.

“To regain trust in Washington, public servants can’t just say ‘trust me,’ they have to show they can be trusted, which is why I won’t own or trade any individual stocks as a candidate or when I become a U.S. Senator regardless of whether a ban is passed,” Cooper said.

Cooper reported never owning or trading stocks while governor, or in ethics forms he filled out for his Senate campaign.

Cooper’s successor, Gov. Josh Stein, reports owning stock, but holding his shares in a blind trust.

Cooper’s Senate campaign opponent, Michael Whatley, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, filed an ethics disclosure to the Senate reporting he’s traded numerous stocks, as does his wife and child.

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