Government accountability: a congressional stock-trading ban
What they say
Her campaign account says she wrote legislation to ban congressional stock trading. Her office separately says the House passed such a ban led by her.
“I don't own a single individual stock. I wrote legislation to ban congressional stock trading. If you write the laws, you shouldn't profit from them.”
What the record shows ·
Across the 117th, 118th and 119th Congresses she sponsored 129 bills and resolutions, and none of them concerns congressional stock trading. Both bills on the subject that carry her name are someone else's. H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, was introduced by Representative Bryan Steil on January 12, 2026; she is an original cosponsor recorded that day, 36th of 93 in the listed order and 36th of the 72 original cosponsors, and she voted Yea when the House passed it 232 to 198 on July 22, 2026 (Roll Call 280). It was placed on the Senate calendar on August 6, 2026 and is not law. H.R. 5106, the Restore Trust in Congress Act, was introduced by Representative Chip Roy on September 3, 2025; she is not an original cosponsor of it and joined on September 11, 2025, 47th of 142. Her office's own releases describe her role three ways, and none of them is authorship. The release of November 19, 2025 states plainly that she is a cosponsor of the Restore Trust in Congress Act, and records a letter she sent to Chairman Bryan Steil and Ranking Member Joe Morelle asking the Committee to unify the proposals that already existed into one enforceable reform, naming a full ban on individual stock trading by members and spouses, blind trusts or index funds as the alternative, and uniform enforcement with real penalties; Steil introduced H.R. 7008 fifty-four days later. The release of July 22, 2026 is headed House Passes Miller-Meeks Backed Bill to Ban Congressional Stock Trading, and its first sentence calls the bill led by her, so her office's headline and its lede do not agree with each other. She does not sit on the Committee on House Administration, which both bills were referred to, and that committee's report on H.R. 7008, H. Rept. 119-479 of February 3, 2026, does not name her anywhere, and does not mention Iowa: it credits the introduction to Steil, and the substitute amendment adopted at markup to Steil. She uses the same verb accurately about a bill that is hers: on August 26, 2026 she posted that she wrote the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act, and she is its sponsor.
Limit: The official actions behind this label are two cosponsorships and a Yea vote when the House passed a ban 232 to 198, and the desk names them because the label requires it. On the word wrote, the record is not silent by accident: it holds sponsorship, cosponsorship, committee action and floor statements, and it records who drafted a bill nowhere, for any member, because most bill text is drafted by the Legislative Counsel at a member's request. A claim to have written legislation is therefore one the official record can neither confirm nor refute, here or anywhere, and this desk does not treat a record that cannot test a claim as a record that defeats it. What the record can show is set out above and a reader can weigh it: no bill of her own on the subject across 129 bills and resolutions, 36th of the seventy-two original cosponsors filed the same day on H.R. 7008, not an original cosponsor of H.R. 5106 at all, her own office calling her a cosponsor under a headline calling it a bill she backed, and a committee report that does not name her on a committee she does not sit on. It also shows the nearest documented thing to authorship: seven weeks before H.R. 7008 existed she wrote to its eventual sponsor, the chairman of that committee, asking him to build a package whose contents it partly matches. The post claims she wrote legislation on a subject. It does not claim any bill of hers passed, and this card does not read it as though it did. The post also carries a video this desk did not watch. What the ban would cover is a question about the bill's text, which this card does not assess.