Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK) Chairman Emeritus Warren Buffett needed more than 60 years to build the most famous track record in investing. Some members of Congress seem to catch up the moment they're sworn in.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to know how that math works, and he isn't buying the beginner's luck explanation.
"How do you have no investment acumen, and then all of a sudden get elected to Congress, and then you're outperforming Warren Buffett?" DeSantis said at a press conference in Tallahassee on Nov. 4, the day after the midterm elections. "How does that work?"
He then described the kind of trade that keeps raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill.
"Oh you just happened to buy something related to an industry where you're on a committee and then it goes up 150%," he continued.
Sitting Out The Market On Purpose
DeSantis said he holds himself to the same standard he wants for everyone else.
"It's untenable when you have people going in trading stocks," he said. "I've never traded stocks since I've been in elected office."
He has been hammering the issue for more than a year. At a Jan. 6 press conference, DeSantis said he gave up trading after winning his first race for the U.S. House in 2012.
"I'm poorer for it," he said.
At the same event, he said lawmakers with no investing history can arrive in Washington and "all of a sudden, they become Warren Buffett on steroids." He also backed Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's push for a ban on congressional stock trading. And he proposed making Florida's federal candidates disclose whether they plan to trade individual stocks if elected, according to his office.
A Ban That Keeps Missing The Closing Bell
The House passed the Stop Insider Trading Act 232-198 on July 22. The bill would bar lawmakers, their spouses and their dependent children from buying new individual stocks, though they could keep shares they already own. It stalled in the Senate on Sept. 30 after Republicans attached a voter identification requirement that Democrats opposed.
DeSantis argued that failing to act hurt his party at the ballot box.
"Why don't they ban the congressional stock trading? It would be a breath of fresh air for everybody," he said.
The Scoreboard Tells A Messier Story
Not every lawmaker is a market genius. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) gained 16.6% in 2025. The average Republican trader in Congress returned 17.3%, and the average Democrat returned 14.4%, according to the latest Unusual Whales Congress trading report.
The top of the list is where things get interesting. The 10 best performers all more than doubled the index, and the trades get so much attention that retail investors now track lawmakers' disclosures like stock tips.
Luck makes a fine explanation once. It gets harder to sell when it keeps showing up next to a committee assignment.
After the July vote, House Democrats vowed to pass their own ban if they won the chamber, Semafor reported. They take over the House in January, and DeSantis' question comes with them — how does someone with no investment acumen keep beating Buffett?
