Yeah.
I'd like to see a ban on members of congress being able to buy any individual stocks.
Agreed—but I think curbing corporate political donations is equally important, as those campaign funds almost represent a backdoor version of legislative insider trading.
A good example is single-payer in the Golden State. I know you, sturg, may be against single-payer, but the fact is a majority of Californians are in favor of it (and I believe you don't live there, so you can think about this in a detached and abstract way).
A good number of the Democrats who now enjoy a super-majority in the State Assembly either explicitly or implicitly campaigned on support for this very issue. Similar legislation passed twice in California in the past, only to be vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger; however the current governor is not just a (D), but an ostensible proponent of single-payer (who's own father, by the way, campaigned for a version of federal single-payer when running for the Democrat's nomination twenty-five years ago). And yet—probably to protect those Assembly members who campaigned on the issue, but don't actually want to have to vote on it (some of whom voted
for single-payer when they knew their then-governor would veto it)—a new version of the legislation was just killed in committee, under the auspices of its needing more work—even though that's the sort of work done
during the legislative process that was withheld.
Why has this happened? It's pretty obvious: because campaign contributions to Democrats in CA, from the insurance industry, have more than doubled in the past ten years. It's a disgusting bait-and-switch, where the bait is popular, good-sense policy proposals that garner votes, and the switch is to whatever keeps the corporate masters happy.