NEW YORK, October 31, 2026 – Imagine the common citizen flipping through financial news on a regular day when legislators disclose their portfolios with trades made at convenient times just before key committee votes.
It’s this sort of quiet graft that makes the common man completely tired.
With the November 3 midterm elections drawing closer, there is no more patience left for government integrity in the country. A recent poll conducted by Gallup in September found that an all-time high 89 per cent of American adults believe that government corruption is widespread—a rare point of agreement between partisans. While inflation and foreign policy concerns are dominating the national discourse, issues related to power and accountability have taken front and center stage.
As reported by The New Arab in a detailed analysis of critical election considerations, the problem of government corruption and the state of American democracy have become major considerations at the ballot box. This is an issue that spans party lines, since 85% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans view the health of American democracy as a very important voting consideration.
And frankly, it’s not hard to see why public trust is evaporating.
Congressional stock trading has been an invisible benefit of the office for decades, an arcane Capitol Hill practice that no one outside the Beltway bothered to follow. But that changed when independent financial watchdogs and social media watchdogs began sharing information about the portfolios of lawmakers with millions of day traders. It seems less like service to the nation and more like insider dealing when one holds a position on an important House committee and invests in regulated industries.
A total ban on individual stock trading for members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children is needed, with any assets required to be invested in broad-based diversified index funds or blind trusts.
However, the ethics issue is not limited to Congress. At the Supreme Court, prior reporting of undisclosed luxury travel, property deals, and gifts from wealthy donors has compromised the perceived impartiality of the judiciary.
While the high court did institute a formal code of conduct late in 2023, the code operates within ethics rules but does not have an independent body to examine complaints and mete out discipline. While lower federal judges have mandatory oversight, the justices in the Supreme Court continue to monitor themselves in terms of ethics.
A proper judicial reform would include a mandatory Supreme Court ethics code that can be enforced by an independent panel, perhaps a rotating panel of former federal judges.
Predictably, there are objections. Some lawmakers feel that restrictions on assets discourage qualified people from getting into politics, while those with an entrenched view of the judiciary fear that the ethics panels may interfere with the separation of powers.
But what is missed in all of this is the larger peril. When four of every five citizens believe that the political process is rigged against them, failure to act on the issue becomes a far greater risk for self-governance than integrity alone. It is the question yet to be answered in the next Congress.
