Ethics and Financial Disclosure

After a series of scandals, the Senate created a Select Committee on Standards and Conduct, now the Select Committee on Ethics, in 1964, and the House created its Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, now the Committee on Ethics, in 1967. After Watergate, the Ethics in Government Act, signed on October 26, 1978, required public financial disclosure by members of Congress, senior executive officials, and federal judges, created the Office of Government Ethics, and restricted lobbying by former officials. The STOCK Act of April 4, 2012, required members and senior officials to report stock trades within 45 days.

Covered officials file annual reports listing assets, income, liabilities, gifts, and outside positions, and periodic reports of securities transactions, which are posted online. Each chamber has rules limiting gifts and travel paid by others, outside earned income, and the use of official resources for campaigns, enforced by its ethics committee. In the House, an independent office created in 2008 reviews complaints and refers cases to the Ethics Committee. In the executive branch, the Office of Government Ethics oversees agency ethics programs, and criminal conflict-of-interest laws bar most officials from working on matters affecting their own finances, though the President and Vice President are exempt from that statute.

Enforcement is often criticized as weak, since members police themselves and penalties for late stock disclosures are small. Proposals to ban members of Congress and their spouses from trading individual stocks have drawn bipartisan support and advanced in committee but have not become law. Concerns about conflicts of interest involving the President's family businesses and foreign payments under the Constitution's emoluments clauses have recurred across administrations. Supporters of stricter rules say they are needed to restore public trust, while skeptics say disclosure is already extensive and new limits could discourage qualified people from serving.