Tim Moore’s aggressive stock trading shows the need for a ban | Editorial

It should be obvious why members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to trade stocks, but if more evidence is needed, consider the investing gusto of U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 14th District.

Moore, the former North Carolina House speaker from 2015 to 2025, is a U.S. House freshman, but he’s already surpassed all other members of the state’s congressional delegation in buying and selling stocks.

A recent report by The News & Observer’s Washington correspondent Danielle Battaglia detailed Moore’s frequent trades. Between his taking office in January and mid-September, Moore made more than 150 trades. That was five times the trading activity of the next closest member in the delegation, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, who made just over 30 trades in the same period.

Good-government advocates have long called for a ban on members of Congress from owning or trading stocks. The members have security clearances, receive confidential briefings and have contacts in financial circles that create a situation ripe for insider trading.

There was nothing about Moore’s trades that showed he acted on information unavailable to the public. However, his trades included investments in companies that could be affected by government actions on health care and tariffs. Even if a member’s trades are above board, the ownership of stock itself can affect how or whether the member votes.

Fortune magazine reported in June that Moore made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases shortly before and after President Donald Trump’s announcement of worldwide tariffs rattled the stock market in April. Moore failed to disclose the trades by a deadline required under the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, but he did submit a report within a 30-day grace period.

In a response to reports on the trades, Moore’s communications director, Grace Davis, said, Moore “has never traded on any inside information and never will. Additionally, the Congressman has consistently complied with all disclosure requirements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.”

It’s discouraging that Moore has to issue such a denial after less than a year in Congress. The questionable practice of elected federal office holders trading stocks is a bipartisan problem. For instance, former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among the House members most active in buying and selling stocks.

Donald Sherman, executive director of CREW, a nonpartisan nonprofit government watchdog organization, said the issue is a matter of perception as well as actual abuse. “The main problem is that people shouldn’t have to question the timing of their elected member’s stock trades,” he said. “They shouldn’t have to wonder whether their member is making choices based on their own portfolio.”

There is a strong bipartisan movement to end the practice. Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Seth Magaziner, D-RI, are sponsors of the Restore Trust in Congress Act. The proposed law would ban the ownership and trading of stocks by members of Congress and their families.

“We must vote on this bill and put this conflict of interest to bed for once and for all,” Roy said in a statement upon introducing the bill in September. “The Restore Trust in Congress Act ensures that members of Congress will no longer be able to put the stock market first in their official decisions.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the bill, said, “The information we have access to as members of Congress should only be used to serve our constituents, not ourselves.”

The legislation has drawn more than 100 co-sponsors (80 Democrats and 22 Republicans). Those include only one member from North Carolina, Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-10th.

Moore said he, too, could support a ban under certain circumstances.

“I’ve traded stocks for decades, always in full compliance with the law and with complete transparency about my finances,” he said Tuesday in response to questions from the editorial board. “But I’ve seen trades by others that just don’t look right, and if members of Congress can’t be more careful with the responsibility they’ve been given, then I’d support a ban, and it ought to apply across the board to the executive and judicial branches, too.”

That sounds like progress. It’s time for members of Congress to put aside their portfolios and invest instead in building trust that they are there to serve the public, first and only.

This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Tim Moore’s aggressive stock trading shows the need for a ban | Editorial."