Congressional Daily Record
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September 30, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. PADILLA. Mr. President, here we are, 34 days before election day—or as I like to suggest, 34 days before the final day to vote, because we are encouraging people to cast their ballot early, if they can, or vote by mail, if and where they can.
American families, Republicans are here again trying to distract from those issues and to, frankly, create confusion amongst voters in order to protect the President and the party from their failed policies.
rein in the ability of elected officials, especially Members of Congress, from making decisions that impact the companies that are in their stock portfolios. That is true. The American people deserve to have confidence that their elected representatives are making decisions in the best interests of the American people and not in your bank account or your stock investments.
But that is not what this bill will do. This bill does not ban Members of Congress from holding stocks or trading stocks, and it exempts the most powerful elected official of all—the President of the United States—from a stock trading ban.
again. When the President makes announcements or posts on Truth Social, he has the potential to move markets, shift the economy. That is truly an awesome power, one that nobody should be able to exploit for their own profit. But that is exactly what Donald Trump has done and has done over and over again.
grown some $4 to $5 billion—billion with a “b.”
stock trades across 8 accounts in a matter of—the average was about 85 trades per day—85 trades per day.
Think about that for a minute. One person, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, the “Trader in Chief,” made more stock trades in 1 year than all 535 Members of Congress.
before he rolled back his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Was that a coincidence? I think not.
How much grift from his own decision making? The American people deserve to know.
But the President's corruption goes even further. His social media company is literally selling access to hedge funds and Wall Street brokers—early access—to his major market-shaping announcements.
Let that sink in for a moment.
while backing a ban that excludes him. That is what the bill before us does. Is anyone surprised the President would support a bill that does nothing to rein him in? How can we possibly go home and tell the American people with a straight face that we are stopping the corruption in Washington when the biggest exploiter is the President and he is immune from this bill? The author of this bill refused to put any guardrails on the biggest, most corrupt stock trader of them all.
in this space. We do. In fact, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, last year, put out a bipartisan bill that would actually address this issue.
with teeth is not what Republicans have chosen to put on the floor today, 34 days before election. Instead, it is a sham bill that doesn't have the teeth and doesn't rein in the “Trader in Chief.”
attempt to ban Members of Congress who trade in stocks, because it includes a voter ID poison pill in it. This so-called voter ID bill would impose a far stricter and more burdensome Federal standard in all 50 States.
Now, some States have voter ID; some States don't. Those that do have laws, at the State level, that require an ID allow Tribal IDs or student IDs issued by the State government or State entity to count. But the Federal provisions in this bill do not.
prefer to vote by mail, if they have that option in their State—and 80 percent of Californians, by the way. This requirement that you have to have a copy of your ID in the envelope with your ballot for it to count eviscerates the secret ballot that we value so much.
and in Utah the Lieutenant Governor is also the State election official—when it was included in the SAVE Act. And now it is in the measure before us.
The SAVE America Act requires a vote[r] to include a
photocopy of their ID . . . violating our Constitutional
right to a secret ballot.
So don't just take my word for it. This is the Republican Lieutenant Governor of Utah. And she is not the only Republican opposed to this kind of legislation.
The Republican Governor of Ohio, with a similar State bill, said:
[The measure] would not discourage fraud, would not add any
real security, and would create an additional and significant
burden for Ohioans who vote by mail.
All for what? In pursuit of the Big Lie that the President has been claiming for, what, a decade now about massive voter fraud? While every expert and every study have found the same thing. Despite the conspiracy theories, voter fraud is already illegal. Let's establish that. It is already on the books as illegal. But it is also extremely, extremely rare.
So what is this bill truly about anyway? It is not about cracking down on corruption, as Republicans claim it is. It is not going to, you know, address the massive voter fraud that does not exist. Again, it is misdirection. It is a distraction, and it threatens to suppress the vote 34 days before the election.
show for their control of government for the last 2 years—right?—you are the majority in the Senate. You are the majority in the House. Your party occupies the White House. When families are struggling with rising inflation, the rising cost of healthcare and housing, groceries, mortgages, gas prices, an unauthorized war in Iran, instead of actually addressing those issues with real proposals, they are seeking to distract and confuse.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The Senator from Ohio.