Big Education Ape: PUBLIC SERVANT WANTED: MUST NOT OWN A BROKERAGE ACCOUNT WITH A DIRECT LINE TO THE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

PUBLIC SERVANT WANTED: MUST NOT OWN A BROKERAGE ACCOUNT WITH A DIRECT LINE TO THE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

I want a public servant like Dear Old Dad.

My father was a firefighter and a sheriff's deputy. He called it public service, and he meant it literally: you show up, you serve the public, and nobody slips you a tip sheet on which defense contractor is about to land a big contract. His only inside information was which house on the block had the space heater plugged into an extension cord.

When Dad voted for a congressman, he expected a public servant. He did not expect a day trader with a parking spot. The deal was simple. You send someone to Washington, they serve you, and the most exciting thing in their portfolio is a pension they earned honestly.

Somewhere along the way, the job description got edited. Today we're stuck with a Congress, a Senate, and a President who treat "public service" as another name for a stockbroker with insider information. Their idea of a portfolio review is a closed-door briefing on a pandemic, an embargo, or a merger, followed by a trade with suspiciously good timing. Funny how the people who write the rules always beat the market. Turns out it's easy to win when you're the one who printed the rulebook and the schedule.

Meet Your Real Public Servants

Here's the thing about the actual public servants in your community: you probably can't name most of them. You hear about them in exactly two situations. They screw up, or they're a hero. The rest of the time they're just doing the work that makes your community function.

That work includes:

The teacher who stays late so a kid can finish a project.
The bus driver who knows every stop and every kid's name.
The dispatcher at 3 a.m. talking a frightened stranger through the worst night of their life.
The water plant operator, whose entire job is making sure you never have to think about water.
The librarian, the building inspector, the park ranger, the social worker, the public defender, and the guy filling the pothole that would have eaten your axle.

None of these folks got a stock tip before the vote. Their inside information is what's actually broken in your neighborhood, and they fix it. Nobody sends them a thank-you note, and nobody has ever sent them an options chain.

The Ask

Washington needs to remember whom they work for. They go there to serve us, not to shop the market with a briefing binder in one hand and a brokerage app in the other.

The STOCK Act of 2012 was supposed to settle this. It requires members to disclose their trades and confirms that insider trading laws apply to them. Fourteen years later, the disclosures keep rolling in, and so do the well-timed trades. Disclosure turns out to be a smoke detector with no fire department.

Now, with Election Day around the corner, Congress is suddenly very interested in the problem. The House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act 232-198, and Senate Republicans are pushing for a vote in the last days before the election. Here's what the bill does: it bars members and their families from buying new individual stocks, and it requires public notice a week before a sale. Here's what it doesn't do: make anyone sell what they already own. Critics have called it a stock trading ban that still allows stock trading. That's like a diet where you can't buy new cake but you're welcome to finish the one in the fridge.

The bill also came with a voter ID provision stapled to it, because nothing says "clean and simple ethics reform" like a rider. And the President, whose portfolio also gets a vote in this, isn't covered. Senate Democrats have pointed that out too.

The alternative on the table is the bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act, which would require current members to divest within 180 days. That's the difference between "stop buying" and "start selling."

Here's the homework:

Ask your candidates for Congress and Senate where they stand on stock trading by members of Congress. Not "do you believe in ethics," because everybody believes in ethics, the way everybody believes in flossing. Ask about the specific bills. Ask whether they'll support making members sell what they already own, or just promise to stop shopping.
Ask whether the ban should cover the President. If the answer is "that's a different conversation," you've learned something.
Listen for the dodge. If the answer includes "let's not rush to judgment," congratulations, you have your answer.
Look up their trades. Members' financial disclosures are public. Reading them is free, and it's more entertaining than anything on TV.
Vote in November accordingly.

Dad never asked for much. He wanted people who took the word "servant" seriously. That's not too much to ask from folks we pay to run the country.

So when you're in the booth this November, think of the public servants you never hear about, the ones who keep the lights on, the water clean, and the fire trucks rolling. Then vote for someone who understands what the job actually is.

Serve the public. Leave the stock picking to the rest of us. Better yet, leave us the tips.