| One senator’s filing came 465 days late, and his office says he owed no fine. |
| LEAD ESSAY / 4 MIN / 3 DOCUMENTS / STORY FILE CONG-FINE |
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| How much would it cost you to file your taxes 465 days late? |
| I can’t give you an exact bill, because that depends on what you owe. But I can promise the IRS would charge you for it. Interest would grow every month. Penalties would get added on top, and letters would start arriving at your house. |
| Now let me show you what happens when a United States senator reports a stock trade 465 days late. Oregon’s Ron Wyden did that in August. Federal law gave him 45 days. And his office says he paid no fine for missing that deadline by more than a year... |
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Ron Wyden and a filing 465 days late |
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| Here’s the record, and it’s short. On April 30, 2025, an account that belongs to Wyden’s wife traded Berry Global shares for stock in a packaging company called Amcor. It came from the merger of the two companies, and the trade was worth six figures. |
| Wyden reported it on August 8, 2026, in a periodic transaction report. In plain English, that’s the short form a lawmaker files each time his family buys or sells a stock. Reports like this are public, and I read them every week. |
| His spokesman, Hank Stern, told Politico the trade turned up while the senator prepared his yearly disclosure. Stern then described the late report in eight words I keep rereading. |
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| “Not subject to penalty from the ethics committee.” |
| HANK STERN, WYDEN SPOKESMAN, VIA REALCLEARPOLITICS |
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| But I want to be fair to Wyden. He says he backs a ban on stock trading by members of Congress. And his office says his wife runs her own small business and keeps her money apart from his. |
| Nor is he alone. At least seven senators broke the 45-day rule in the past year, according to The Washington Sun. Four are Republicans: Alan Armstrong, Katie Britt, Susan Collins and Mike Rounds. John Hickenlooper and John Fetterman, both Democrats, are on it too. |
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Pat Fallon’s 122 late trades and a $600 bill |
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| So what does it cost to be late? Each chamber sets a standard late fee of $200. Either ethics committee can waive it, too. For a first late report in the House, that $200 covers the filing no matter how many trades it lists. |
| Let me walk you through one case where you can see the math. Representative Pat Fallon of Texas reported 122 trades late during his first year in office. Those trades were worth between $9 million and $21 million. |
| FILED / OCE REPORT, REVIEW NO. 21-3355 |
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| Fallon reported 122 trades late in 2021, the Office of Congressional Ethics found. OCE is an independent House office that reviews complaints about members. Two late-fee checks appear in the record, one for $200 and one for $400. Investigators add that some members who filed late were never told to pay a fine. |
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| Add it up and you get $600, set against as much as $21 million in trades. And I read every one of the report’s 20 pages. And in July 2022, the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to dismiss the case. My reading of its statement is plain: the committee said it lacked clear evidence that the late filings were knowing or willful. |
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53 senators said yes, and 60 were needed |
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| Lawmakers had a chance to change these rules this fall. Back in July, the House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act 232 to 198. That bill would have stopped members, spouses and dependent children from buying individual stocks. Still, they could have kept what they already own. |
| Senators took it up on September 30 with a cloture vote. That’s a vote to end debate so a bill can go forward, and it needs 60. Fifty-three senators voted yes. Every Democrat voted no. Democrats objected to a voter ID rule the House had added, and they called the trading limits too weak. Republicans said Democrats had blocked an ethics reform... |
| You can read the Fallon report yourself, all 20 pages of it, and I’d suggest you do. Under current law, a filing is the only way you learn what your representative bought. But the filing can come a year late. Since the STOCK Act passed 14 years ago, the Justice Department hasn’t prosecuted a single member for breaking its disclosure rules, RCP reports. |
| So here’s where that leaves you. Your representative can buy a stock and report it a year later. If the committee charges a fee at all, it’s $200. Meanwhile the ban that would have tightened those rules is stalled in the Senate. And you’ll cast your ballot in less than two weeks. Ask the people on it one question before then: what did you buy, and when did you tell us? |
