U.S. Rep. Tony Wied, a millionaire who represents Wisconsin’s northeastern district, reported at least $1.3 million in trades in February. Experts say it’s only a matter of time before his stock trading becomes a problem.

---

By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT

Most Americans support banning members of Congress and their families from trading stocks in individual companies. 

So says a 2023 University of Maryland study that surveyed about 3,000 registered voters. 

Lawmakers in Washington are privy to information the general public may not be and can use it to make advantageous stock trades. 

And “the problem is getting worse,” said Kedric Payne, director of the ethics program for the Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog in Washington. His team focuses on enforcing existing ethics laws and advocating for tougher ones.

Payne believes the public should know “their elected officials are protecting the public interest and not their own personal interest.”

The STOCK Act, a federal law passed in 2012, requires members of Congress to disclose their trades within about 30 days of the purchase or sale. But the penalty for filing a disclosure report late is a meager $200. 

Payne said his organization used to file ethics complaints for congressional stock trading. It’s rare that they file those complaints now since the most common violation is a late report, and the legal penalty for filing late is so insignificant.

While disclosure requirements can help reveal actual or perceived conflicts of interest, Payne said, disclosing conflicts of interest also lessens the public’s trust in government. In effect, the increased transparency doesn’t alleviate whether the trade looks corrupt or is corrupt.

U.S. Rep. Tony Wied, a freshman congressman elected to the Wisconsin 8th in 2024, is no stranger to stock trading. The Republican represents the northeastern portion of the state, and his investment activity consistently outpaces Wisconsin’s other congressional representatives.

A businessman from De Pere who was elected to his seat by a wide margin in 2024, Wied formerly owned a gas station chain in the Green Bay area. His district encompasses parts of Door County, Green Bay and Appleton. Like every other member of Congress, his seat will be up for grabs this year in the midterm elections. Wied has said publicly he plans to seek reelection.

Wied recently reported buying between $760,000 and $1.6 million in stock between Feb. 3 and Feb. 19, according to The Badger Project’s analysis of Wied’s periodic transaction report. The disclosure laws only require that members report ranges and not exact values. In the same time period, Wied also wholly or partially sold stock valued between about $600,000 and $1.5 million.

Members of Congress are required to file periodic reports with the Clerk of the House about 45 days after they, their spouse or their dependent children buy or sell a financial asset worth more than $1,000. Wied’s most recent report, filed in March, is five pages long and lists 25 separate transactions. His largest single transaction was a purchase of between $500,000 and $1 million in U.S. treasury bills, a low-risk, low-reward investment.  

In comparison, no other representative among Wisconsin’s U.S. House members — Reps Mark Pocan, Gwen Moore, Scott Fitzgerald, Derrick Van Orden, Glenn Grothman, Brian Steil and Tom Tiffany — have filed periodic transports in the last year.

Members must also submit yearly financial disclosures, which list their assets and liabilities. 

The sum of Wied’s assets disclosed in his latest annual disclosure ranges from about $6 million to $13 million, according to a review by The Badger Project. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, who has millions in commercial real estate and stocks, is the only member of Wisconsin’s delegation in Washington to top that. Johnson reported assets ranging from about $17 million to $81 million in 2025.

Wied’s staff wrote in an email to The Badger Project in January that the congressman’s trades are solely managed by an independent financial advisor and that Wied complies with all ethics laws and guidelines. 

Wied’s office did not respond to The Badger Project’s request for comment for this story. 

Payne told The Badger Project that Wied isn’t on his group’s radar. 

“We haven’t seen anything that would draw this congressman to our attention,” Payne said.

But a congressman’s trades can be aboveboard and still raise suspicion because lawmakers who trade at a high volume will eventually make a transaction that either overlaps with their professional duties or appears to, Payne said. 

“It’s only a matter of time for him to have trades over his career that are gonna raise questions whether or not he did anything wrong,” Payne said about Wied. “And when people question if their elected official is prioritizing their interest or prioritizing the official’s personal interest, you have a problem.”

That’s why Payne and his organization have endorsed the bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act. The bill was introduced last September and has been stuck in committee since. Among the bill’s 131 co-sponsors are Van Orden and Pocan. If it passes, the proposed legislation would bar members of Congress as well as their spouses and dependent children from both owning and trading individual stocks. Further, members would be required to either divest their current holdings or place them into a blind trust.

“It is a real legislative solution to the problem,” Payne said. 

The bill is facing competition as Democrats and Republicans have since introduced their own, “watered down” versions, Payne said. The Stop Insider Trading in Congress Act, introduced by Steil, a Republican, and mentioned by President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address, would prohibit members of Congress from buying individual stocks. But members could continue to own their stocks and sell them. The Restore Trust in Government Act, the Democratic version, would include the president and vice president in the members included in a stock trading ban.

Payne said he has faith that the original bill will pass eventually, but that it will take another scandal to get the public to pay attention and demand Congress to take action.

Wied’s trades in February 2026

SALES
MIN	MAX	STOCK	TRADE DATE
$15,001	$50,000	Paycom Software Inc	2/12/26
$50,001	$100,000	Block Inc Class A	2/12/26
PARTIAL SALES
$15,001	$50,000	Fortinet Inc	2/19/26
$15,001	$50,000	Broadcom Inc	2/19/26
$50,001	$100,000	Western Alliance Bancorp	2/19/26
$15,001	$50,000	Salesforce Inc	2/17/26
$50,001	$100,000	Lam Resh Corp	2/12/26
$100,001	$250,000	Artista Networks Inc	2/12/26
$50,001	$100,000	Take-Two Interactive	2/11/26
$50,001	$100,000	Block Inc A Class	2/11/26
$50,001	$100,000	Western Alliance Bancorp	2/9/26
$50,001	$100,000	Lam Resh Corp	2/9/26
$50,001	$100,000	Take-Two Interactive	2/3/26
$15,001	$50,000	Artista Networks Inc	2/3/26
$50,001	$100,000	Lam Resh Corp	2/3/26
$15,001	$50,000	Ulta Beauty Inc	2/3/26
PURCHASES
$50,001	$100,000	Visa Inc Class A	2/19/26
$15,001	$50,000	Labcorp Holdings Inc	2/19/26
$50,001	$100,000	Charles Schwab Corp	2/19/26
$15,001	$50,000	Micron Technology Inc	2/19/26
$500,001	$1,000,000	U.S. Treasury Bills	2/13/26
$15,001	$50,000	ServiceNow Inc	2/4/26
$50,001	$100,000	Him & Hers Health Inc	2/3/26
$15,001	$50,000	Hubspot Inc	2/3/26
$50,001	$100,000	The Trade Desk Inc Class A	2/3/26

The Badger Project is an independent, reader-supported news nonprofit in Wisconsin.