The Senate's 2026 Restore Trust in Congress Act: What S. 3649 Proposed

The bill would bar members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from owning or trading covered individual assets, including stocks, securities, commodities, and futures.

It would require current lawmakers to divest covered holdings within 180 days after the law took effect. Newly elected members would have 90 days after taking office.

Broadly diversified funds, government securities, and other exempt assets could remain available under the proposal. The goal was to remove the member-specific upside and conflict risk associated with individual holdings without prohibiting ordinary diversified investing.

The bill text and any implementing rules would control the exact boundaries. A headline shorthand such as 'all investing is banned' would be inaccurate.

The proposal covered lawmakers and immediate family members but exempted the president and vice president. Gillibrand told the Associated Press she preferred a broader standard but viewed the bipartisan agreement as a place to start.

That carveout distinguished S. 3649 from some competing proposals and became one of the central policy questions: whether a conflict-of-interest rule should stop at Congress or reach senior executive officials too.

Congress.gov records S. 3649 as introduced and referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on January 15. At that point it had not passed either chamber.

Researchers should distinguish a bill's text from its legislative status. Until both chambers pass matching language and the president signs it, the existing STOCK Act disclosure framework remains in force.