Fix the Court today is commending Rep. Joe Morelle (right) for putting forward an amendment to a congressional stock-banning bill that would include federal judges and Supreme Court justices in that ban.

The amendment, offered last week during a House Committee on Administration markup, was ultimately withdrawn and not voted on. (For what it’s worth, this particular legislation doesn’t actually ban congressional stock ownership, which is why FTC doesn’t support the larger bill; we prefer this one or this one that would.)

In any event, now’s a good time to again point out why FTC believes that jurists should not own individual stocks.

There are two main reasons:

First, it’s possible that in the course of presiding over a case involving, say, a tech company, a judge could learn via sealed filings or testimony about a new product that company is developing or could learn about a new chip that another company is producing for the first company. We believe that the vast majority of judges are ethical in the cores, but it’s possible that type of insider information would be too juicy to forget and could impact a judge’s investment decisions and, ultimately, his or her rulings.

Second, individual stock ownership causes lots of unnecessary recusals. This is especially true at the Supreme Court (11 of 39 so far this term and 28 of 83 last term, all by Justice Alito), where a single justice’s recusal due to his or her investments can lead to the possibility of a 4-4 tie, which would mean there’s no national rule on a case of great import. (SCOTUS only hears “cases of great import,” and most of its cases are circuit splits, meaning the law could for some time be different depending on where in the country you live. A recusal is required by law if a judge or justice owns even a single dollar in stock in a party.)

But it’s also true in the lower courts where you don’t want cases pinging around the courthouse based on who owns what stock — especially in jurisdictions like N.D. Cal., S.D.N.Y., D. Del., W.D. Tex. and S.D. Tex. where a lot of Fortune 500 companies are based and where a disproportionate amount of bankruptcy and patent cases are brought.

Plus, a stock ban also means that you won’t have a judge or their spouse, or their broker on their behalf, buying an individual stock mid-trial, which can throw a wrench in the proceedings and again waste everyone’s time.

Just like there’s a STOCK Act for Congress and judges, which requires online financial disclosures and online stock transaction reports for each, there should be a stock ban for Congress and judges — though given that the underlying bill in this case is a dud, it’s probably best that Rep. Morelle’s amendment was withdrawn.

We look forward to doing more in this area in the future.