Texas Lawmakers Caught In Sketchy Trades

Members of Congress from Texas bought or sold assets tied to their committee work, including stocks, bonds, and other financial assets, according to The New York Times.

While members of the House and Senate are not prohibited from investing in companies, the trading pattern exposed by the Times “underscore longstanding concerns about the potential for conflicts of interest or use of inside information by members of Congress, government ethics experts say.”

To examine potential conflicts, the Times used a comprehensive database called Capitol Trades, which was created by the German financial data firm 2iQ Research, as reported by San Antonio Express-News.

Here are some of the Texas Congress members who the Times shone a spotlight on: 

• Dan Crenshaw sold shares worth $1,000 to $15,000 to Kinder Morgan, an energy infrastructure firm, while he was a member of the House Energy Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change, according to the Times.
  
• U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a.k.a “one of Congress’s most active filers.” His family traded millions of dollars worth of Meta, before and after a 2019 Home Security Committee hearing examining social media’s role in the spread of misinformation. They also bought and sold shares of major Department of Homeland Security contractors IBM and Accenture while he sat on the Homeland Security Committee.
  
• Pete Sessions, a Republican who represents a district that includes a strip of central Texas stretching from Waco to Bryan-College Station.
  
• Pat Fallon, a Republican who represents a district that covers 18 counties along the Red River in northeastern Texas.
  

Lizzie Fletcher,  a Democrat who represents a small area of western Harris County, and her husband bought and sold stock during the first six months she served in Congress.