Tlaib Introduces Bill to Ban Members of Congress from Owning Defense Stocks
WASHINGTON D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) re-introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act to prohibit Members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from having any financial interests in any company that does business with the Department of Defense and ban them from trading defense stocks.
Congresswoman Tlaib is a longtime supporter of legislation to prohibit Members of Congress from buying and selling stocks. Currently, Members of Congress who own stock in defense contractors benefit financially when they vote to pass more funding for war. According to a Sludge analysis, as of last year, more than 50 members of Congress owned stock in defense contractors—even when their committee assignments and access to information as elected officials stood to give them insider knowledge.
In the last three years, defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Honeywell, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman have taken over $380 billion in taxpayer money and made over $85 billion in profits, according to annual reports of the six firms. These six firms alone also spent a combined $263 million on lobbying and donated over $48 million to candidates during the past two election cycles.
“It is disgusting that Members of Congress benefit financially when they vote to pass more funding for war,” said Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. “Members of Congress should not be able to use their positions of power to get rich from defense contractors while voting to pass more funding to bomb people. This is corruption. We need to ban Members of Congress and their families from owning stock in war manufacturing. They should not be able to profit off death.”
This legislation is cosponsored by Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Val Hoyle (OR-04), Summer Lee (PA-12), James McGovern (MA-02), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Mark Takano (CA-39), and Paul Tonko (NY-20).
“Ensuring that Pentagon contractor CEOs get their big annual payouts has become an unspoken part of the job description for Members of Congress,” said Savannah Wooten, People Over Pentagon Advocate at Public Citizen. “Bravo to Representative Tlaib for saying the quiet part out loud with her proposed ban on elected representatives holding and trading defense stocks. Congressmembers with a direct financial stake in whether or not the United States goes to war will not make de-escalatory or financially sound decisions on our behalf.”
“It’s simple: No one should profit from war—least of all the politicians who vote to fund it. Yet, members of Congress are trading weapons contractor stocks while directing billions of tax dollars to those same companies,” said Sara Haghdoosti, Executive Director of Win Without War. “This corruption must end. Representative Tlaib’s bill is a vital step to breaking this cycle of war profiteering. If our leaders truly serve the public, they must put people over profits—not cash in on the wars they help wage.”
“The Pentagon budget is now close to $1 trillion dollars and nearly half of that amount goes to contractors. Every year, the top contractors, Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing, and others receive hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts from the U.S. military,” said Mike Merryman-Lotze, Peace Building Policy Director at the American Friends Service Committee. “This is a core part of their revenue and profits. Congress members owning stock in these companies while allocating the resources that pad their bottom line is the definition of bad practice. This bill is about accountability, trust, and good governance and it should be passed immediately.”
This legislation is endorsed by Public Citizen, American Friends Service Committee, Center for Constitutional Rights, Win Without War, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Gen-Z for Change, Popular Democracy Action, Peace Action, National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, CommonDefense.us, Action Corps, About Face: Veterans Against the War, 350.org, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, Hindus for Human Rights, Justice is Global, IMEU Policy Project, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), MADRE, Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action), Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Adalah Justice Project, Institute for Policy Studies New Internationalism Project, MPower Change Action Fund, Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), American Federation of Ramallah Palestine, A New Policy, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), NuclearBan.US, RootsAction.org, ReThinking Foreign Policy, Migrant Roots Media, VietLead, Women Cross DMZ, First Pakistan Global, and Warheads to Windmills Coalition.
Congresswoman Tlaib’s recent op-ed on this legislation can be found here.
A copy of the legislation is available here.
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