Eric Cantor released several changes to the act earlier this week. | John Shinkle/POLITICO House approves insider trading ban

The House on Thursday joined the Senate in overwhelmingly approving a congressional insider-trading ban.

Now the question is whether the two chambers can make a deal — or whether they’ll find a way to stall over details and prevent a bill from reaching President Barack Obama’s desk.


Both measures passed overwhelmingly — 417-2 in the House and 96-3 in the Senate last week — but the bills differ in some respects.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had released several changes to the STOCK Act earlier this week that broadened the bill’s disclosure requirements and insider-trading ban to the executive branch and ensured that lawmakers convicted of a crime couldn’t collect their pensions.

It also puts in place tougher rules on public officials participating in initial public offerings.

But the bill also scrapped a provision that would have required so-called political intelligence firms to disclose their activities much like lobbyists already do – much to the dismay of Democrats who favored tougher rules on the industry.

The changes did not sit well with senators behind the provisions that Cantor ditched.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) earlier this week slammed the House for deleting his amendment targeting the political intelligence industry, which tracks action on Capitol Hill and then sells the information to investors. Instead, the House bill requires just a study of the industry’s activities within 12 months.

“It’s astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street’s wishes by killing this provision,” Grassley said.

And Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who co-authored with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) an amendment to crack down on public corruption using a number of measures, said he was “deeply disappointed” his provision had disappeared from the House bill.

Those divisions could complicate the path to a compromise.

Cantor said on the House floor Thursday that the House bill dropped provisions that are “unworkable” or brought “far more questions than they would’ve answered.”

“The thrust of this bill is making sure that none of us … are able to profit from nonpublic information,” Cantor said. “The political intelligence piece is outside of this body, and we’re are talking about us and the perception that has gathered around our conduct.”

Democrats are calling for a formal conference between the House and Senate to iron out differences.

The two “no” votes Thursday were by Reps. John Campbell (R-Calif.) and Rob Woodall (R-Ga.)