Top 10 Richest US Senators' Top Stock Trades in 2007

US Senators and Representatives determine legislation that can directly affect corporations' stocks. Some view Congressional representatives' trading of stocks in industries under the jurisdiction of their Congressional committees to present at least a conflict of interest or at worst insider trading. In 2007, 45 corporations, spanning finance, insurance, oil, pharmaceutical, telecom, and other industries, made the 10 richest Senators' top 5 stocks owned, purchased, and sold lists. Government appropriations totalled over $18 billion to these companies.

The charts below detail the 10 richest US Senators' (and Barack Obama's) publicly traded stock investments in 2007, their financial disclosure reports, and other relevant factors that could pose as conflicts of interest. Such factors, provided under "Additional Information," include membership in committees that have jurisdiction over companies in which the Senators invested, the Senators' personal relationships with the companies, and the amount of government appropriations to each company.

Click here to read our methodology, information on how to read the charts, and additional notes of interest.

"Democrats argue that their criticisms of the oil industry show they are willing to do what is best for Americans despite their own financial interests...

Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), the 2004 Democratic nominee, has blasted his colleague John McCain (Ariz.), the expected Republican presidential candidate, in recent days for pursuing policies that he says benefit the oil industry.

When Kerry ran for president four years ago, he criticized President Bush's 'energy policy of Big Oil, by Big Oil, and for Big Oil.'

Kerry has tens of thousands of dollars invested in those same companies, but an aide to the senator said the investment is held in trust and Kerry has no control over it.

Kerry's financial disclosure reports show two investments in Exxon Mobil worth between $65,000 and $150,000 combined. He also showed a stake in BP worth between $15,000 and $50,000."

July 1, 2008, Alexander Bolton, "Dems Willing to Criticize Oil Despite Holding Stock," The Hill

"Not all the companies in which lawmakers invested are typical defense contractors. Corporations such as PepsiCo, IBM, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson have at one point received defense-related contracts...

The [Center for Responsive Politics's] review of lawmakers' 2006 financial disclosure statements suggests that members' holdings could pose a conflict of interest as they decide the fate of Iraq war spending. Several members earning money from these contractors have plum committee or leadership assignments, including Democratic Sen. John Kerry...

'So common are these companies, both as personal investments and as defense contractors, it would appear difficult to build a diverse blue-chip stock portfolio without at least some of them,' [Center for Responsive Politic's Lindsay Renick] Mayer wrote.

Spokesman David Wade said Kerry, who staunchly opposes the war in Iraq, is one of many beneficiaries of family trusts that he doesn't control. Wade also noted that Kerry does not sit on the Appropriations Committee, which has direct control of the defense budget.

'He has a 24-year Senate record of working and voting in the best interests of our men and women in the military, not of any defense contractors,' Wade said."

Anne Flaherty, "Report: Lawmakers Have Nearly $200M Invested in Companies Doing Defense-Related Work," The Huffington Post, Apr. 3, 2008

"Federal investigations into a well-timed stock sale by Senator Bill Frist are calling new attention to the 'blind trusts' that he and many other government officials use to deal with potential conflicts of interest.

Federal ethics laws make it virtually impossible for members of Congress...to set up trusts fully beyond their knowledge or control...[E]thics laws require the annual public disclosure of its contents.

So the laws provide for the creation of special 'qualified blind trusts' like Frist's, which are exempt from public disclosure. The laws strictly limit communications between the trustee and the beneficiary, but they also mandate disclosure of the original holdings and notification to the beneficiary whenever an original asset is sold.

And the rules give beneficiaries...the power to order the sale of all of a stock or other asset at any time in the name of eliminating a potential conflict. 'That doesn't really sound very 'blind,' does it?' said Celia Viggo-Wexler, vice president for advocacy of the group Common Cause.

The trusts have become especially popular among the growing number of millionaires in the U.S. Senate....

In addition to Frist, other senators with blind trusts of one kind or another include Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Barbara Boxer of California, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, all Democrats; and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Michael Enzi of Wyoming, both Republicans."

David D. Kirkpatrick, "Trusts Like the Senate Leader's Can't Be Truly 'Blind'," International Herald Tribune, Sep. 27, 2005

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"The Frist probe has prompted new scrutiny of government ethics laws that allow lawmakers to set up 'qualified blind trusts' that give them insight into some of their holdings...

Such trusts are 'merely cosmetic,' says lawyer Kenneth Gross, an expert on congressional ethics who has helped establish trusts for elected officials.

The senators with blind trusts include Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California, Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia...

Kennedy, Kohl and others have withdrawn funds in the past five years without knowing their source, according to interviews and financial-disclosure reports."

Andrea Stone, "Frist Probe Raises Questions on Blind Trusts," USA Today, Oct. 23, 2005

"In the case of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chair of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, his stock in Pepsico, which is worth at least $1 million, is actually held by his wife, who is on the food and beverage corporation's board of directors. Pepsico received $187 million in defense contracts in 2006, according to OMB Watch. 'His wife's separate holdings have no influence,' Rockefeller spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said. 'Sen. Rockefeller, out of an abundance of caution to ensure there's no conflict of interest, has held all his assets in a blind trust since he was the governor of West Virginia.'"

Lindsay Renick Mayer, "Members of Congress Profit Iraq War Contractor Stocks," Voters For Peace, Apr. 3, 2008

5. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

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"As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee...

From 1997 through the end of 2005, with Feinstein's knowledge, Blum was a majority owner of both URS Corp. and Perini Corp...

From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such MILCON projects. In her annual Public Financial Disclosure Reports, Feinstein records a sizeable family income from large investments in Perini, which is based in Framingham, Mass., and in URS, headquartered in San Francisco..."

Peter Byrne, "Senator Feinstein's Iraq Conflict," Metro Silicon Valley, Jan. 24-20, 2007

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her responsibilities with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee after a report linked her votes to the financial well-being of her husband's companies, which received billions of dollars worth of military construction contracts she approved."

"Feinstein Quits Committee Under War-Profiteer Cloud," WorldNetDaily.com, Mar. 28, 2007

• Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. received $203,472,592 in government contracts for fiscal year 2007, including a total of approx. $195 million from the Air Force, Army, and Navy.

• Senator Dole sits on the following committee that may present a conflict of interest with this investment:

"When it comes to his own money and politics, McCain is hard to pin down. Public filings put his family's net worth at anywhere from $25 million to $38 million, making McCain the seventh-richest sitting senator. The only asset listed under the senator's name alone, however, is a checking account with Wachovia valued at $15,000 to $50,000...

While McCain and his wife, Cindy, also have two joint bank accounts, each valued at $15,000 or less, the rest of the McCain fortune is held in the name of Cindy and their dependent children through a vast network of investments...

'Most of the McCains' holdings appear to be in pooled investment vehicles, like funds, trusts and limited liability corporations," says Christian Hviid, vice president and director of asset allocation with Genworth Financial Asset Management. "That strategy has a couple of side benefits for a presidential candidate in that it removes any appearance of a conflict of interest in terms of holding corporate stock. That said, you lose transparency because it's very hard to see what's really going on in that type of structure.'

...One of Hensley's largest positions is in US Airways Group, where its stake was recently valued between $100,000 and $250,000.

McCain, who sits on the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security, has long been vocal on a variety of issues affecting the airlines. He has been particularly supportive of his hometown airline America West, which bought US Airways out of bankruptcy in 2005 to become US Airways Group...

Still, there is nothing to suggest that his wife's indirect financial interest in US Airways poses a conflict of interest for McCain.

'Hensley & Co. owns stock in US Airways, and Cindy McCain is a shareholder in Hensley," says McCain's spokesman. "This arrangement is entirely permissible by Senate ethics rules.'

Massie Ritsch, communications director with the Center for Responsive Politics, says it's not unusual for senators to own stock in companies over which they have political influence and it does not break any rules..."

Nat Worden, "Picking Apart McCain's Stock Portfolio," TheStreet.com, Mar. 20, 2007

Spouse Name and Title:
Bill Clinton
42nd US President

"Bill and Hillary Clinton have dissolved the blind trust that has managed their investments since they entered the White House in 1993, converting all stocks to cash to avoid financial conflicts as she runs for president, according to documents to be filed today with federal ethics officials.

The documents reviewed by The Washington Post provide the most complete accounting of how the Clintons accrued the $5 million to $25 million in the trust -- nearly all since leaving the White House -- through investments in foreign companies, oil giants and drugmakers without their input or knowledge and without public disclosure...

The Clintons were told earlier this year by federal ethics officials that they would need to reorganize their blind trust to comply with laws for presidential candidates, which differ from those for senators.

The couple chose instead to dissolve the trust on April 27 and to convert all their stocks to cash to avoid any questions about possible conflicts of interests, the Clintons' legal and financial advisers said. Their portfolio will be limited to cash accounts and U.S. Treasury notes, the advisers said...

'Senator Clinton and the president chose to go above and beyond to avoid even the hint of a conflict of interest. They recognize that this choice comes at a personal expense, both in terms of taxes and lower investment returns,' said Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the senator's presidential campaign."

John Solomon, "Clintons Dissolve Blind Financial Trust," Washington Post, June 15, 2007

10. Andrew L. (Lamar) Alexander, Jr. (R-TN)

Avg. Net Worth of
Household in 2006:
$27,800,155

Spouse Name and Title:
Leslee "Honey" Alexander
Board of Trustees, WETA
Member and Vice Chairman, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board of Directors

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"Alexander's financial disclosure shows that he and his wife, Leslee 'Honey' Alexander, have a net worth of between $11.8 million and $44.2 million.

It and the tax return indicate that most of their income comes from investment holdings. He received more than $1 million in capital gains from stock sales, the disclosure shows, while Processed Foods Corp. of Knoxville paid him at least $200,000...

'In addition to my annual federal financial disclosure form, I have for 30 years released my federal tax returns for every year that I have served in public office in order to help taxpayers evaluate whether my family's income represented a conflict of interest,' said Alexander."

Tom Humphrey, "Officials Disclose Finances," Knoxville News Sentinel, Nov. 4, 2007

$1,000,000 - $5,000,000

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"Obama's lean portfolio from 2005...reflects his status as a newcomer and an outsider to the establishment of beltway presidential politics. The more conventional candidates, such as the early Democratic frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and her Republican counterpart, Sen. John McCain, boast vast networks of investments that are typical of a public figure heading up a well-oiled political machine. Obama's investments, meanwhile, are mostly tied up in a short list of conservative mutual funds...

A closer look, however, shows that in 2005 he dabbled in two obscure stocks -- Skyterra Communications SKYT and AVI Biopharma AVII -- that happened to get large amounts of revenue from a source with which Obama has some familiarity: the federal government.

Aside from sharing the same deep-pocketed benefactor, the two have one more thing in common. They both provide services in an area that has become a hot-button issue on Capitol Hill and with the electorate: homeland security.

'Homeland Security is a field that has really sprung up in the years following the [terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001], and you have a lot of small companies that are vying for a lot of big government contracts,' says Massie Ritsch, the communications director for Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money and influence in U.S. politics. 'When the people controlling the purse strings for government contracts are invested in the companies that stand to get those contracts, it definitely raises ethical questions.'

To be sure, it's not uncommon to find elected officials in Congress who hold investments in companies that receive federal funding or provide testimony to their legislative committees. In fact, it's hard to find any politicians with money in the stock market who aren't at least indirectly invested in a major government contractor, such as General Electric or Boeing.

But Obama's 2005 trades raise questions in that Skyterra Communications and AVI Biopharma are far more speculative and uncommon stocks than those blue-chip staples...While there's no evidence that Obama had a role in the contracts for the companies, given his other investments, it seems an unlikely coincidence that the senator would be familiar with either company except through his work as a legislator.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, says that in the process of setting up a blind trust for the senator, the stocks were recommended and purchased by a broker at UBS.

'The broker's intention was to hold on to them long-term -- but to avoid any potential conflict, he sold the stock to reinvest the money in mutual funds,' says Burton."

Nat Worden, "Picking Apart Obama's Stock Portfolio," TheStreet.com, Mar. 5, 2007

"Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.

One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.

The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama...also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama...said yesterday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.

The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Obama's broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made.

'He went about this process to avoid an actual or apparent conflict of interest, and he had no knowledge of the stocks he owned,' Mr. Burton said. 'And when he realized that he didn't have the level of blindness that he expected, he moved to terminate the trust.'

Mr. Obama has made ethics a signature issue, and his quest for the presidency has benefited from the perception that he is unlike politicians who blend public and private interests. There is no evidence that any of his actions ended up benefiting either company during the roughly eight months that he owned the stocks.

Even so, the stock purchases raise questions about how he could unwittingly come to invest in two relatively obscure companies, whose backers happen to include generous contributors to his political committees...

Mr. Burton said the trust was different from qualified blind trusts that other senators commonly used, because it was intended to allow him greater flexibility to address any accusations of conflicts that might arise from its assets. He said Mr. Obama had decided to sell the stocks after receiving a communication that made him concerned about how the trust was set up."

Mike McIntire and Christopher Drew, "In '05 Investing, Obama Took Same Path as Donors," New York Times, Mar. 7, 2007

How to Use the Charts, Methodology, and More Notes

The US Senate Ethics Manual (2003) states:

Members [of Congress] should not ''be expected to fully strip themselves of worldly goods''-even a selective divestiture of potentially conflicting assets is not required. Unlike many officials in the executive branch, who are concerned with administration and regulation in a narrow area, a Senator exercises judgment concerning legislation across the entire spectrum of business and economic endeavors. The wisdom of complete (unlike selective) divestiture may also be questioned as likely to insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his or her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy.

The regulation of legislative ethics largely rests on the public financial disclosure forms that Congressional representatives file annually. These forms allow the public to decide if a member of Congress's investments present a conflict of interest. The public financial disclosure PDFs provided in the charts were retrieved from OpenSecrets.org, a website produced by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Given Senators' knowledge of pending legislation or potential appropriations for decisions that can affect the stocks of these companies, some argue that Senators who trade stocks based on any material, nonpublic legislative information should be subject to insider trading laws (which they currently are not as of Sep. 29, 2008).

Our charts focus on the top 10 richest US Senators (and not Representatives) because it includes 2008 presidential candidates John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Although not in the top 10, Senator and 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama has also been included for comparison. He was ranked 67th in the Senate according to his average net worth in 2006.

The Senators are listed according to their average net worth by the end of 2006, from highest to lowest in net worth, as calculated by the Center for Responsive Politics. For each Senator, the chart lists the top 5 publicly traded stocks owned as of Dec. 31, 2007 and the top 5 publicly traded stocks purchased and sold in 2007. The same information is provided for the spouses and dependents of the Senator when such information was provided.

The range of the dollar amounts were added up according to the ranges provided for each time the company stock was listed in the financial report. When the total investment ranges were equal for two or more companies, we listed the companies in alphabetical order. There is no upper limit of financial investments over $1,000,000 for Senators' spouses because this information is not disclosed in the financial reports.

Each committee on which a Senator sits in the 110th Congressional Session (2007-2008) is represented by a colored symbol, which is used in the "Additional Information" section. Committees that pose potential conflicts of interest with certain investments were selected if services provided by the companies fall under the jurisdiction or oversight of the committees. Information regarding the amount of government contracts received from each company is listed for fiscal year 2007 according to federalspending.org, a project of OMB Watch.

When no particular stocks were listed on a Senator's financial disclosure report, we listed the top five funds or trusts that were provided in the Senator's 2007 financial disclosure report. When individual company stocks were listed, funds and trusts were left off to avoid confusion. Excepted Trusts and Qualified Blind Trusts do not require Senators to provide detailed stock investment information and are therefore not listed on the chart.

At the bottom of each chart are news articles dated since 2005 found related to the Senators' financial investments that pose as potential conflicts of interest.

*Bob Dole's investment in Amgen was calculated by multiplying his percent interest in Liberty View Fund, LLC (0.23%) by the total amount the fund has invested in Amgen ($30,000,003-$75,000,000) as of Dec. 31, 2007.