Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said Friday that legislation restricting stock trading by members of Congress would remove the appearance of wrongdoing and deliver the most significant Capitol Hill ethics reform in more than a decade.

The House passed Steil's Stop Insider Trading Act on Wednesday in a 232-198 vote, with all 218 Republicans, 13 Democrats, and one independent supporting the measure, according to the House clerk's official tally.

Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, told Newsmax's "National Report" that lawmakers should focus on public service rather than trading shares in individual companies.

"Yeah, no, I'm excited that we moved it through the House of Representatives earlier this week," Steil said. "This has been a long time in the making. It's my view that one of the best things that we can do is remove even the appearance of wrongdoing in Congress."

He added, "Members of Congress shouldn't be in their jobs day trading stocks of individual companies. If you want to day trade, there's a place for that. It's called Wall Street. If you're coming to Washington, you need to be working on behalf of the American people."

The legislation would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from purchasing individual publicly traded stocks while lawmakers are in office.

Current holdings could be retained, but lawmakers seeking to sell covered assets would have to disclose the transaction at least seven days in advance.

"The legislation has got three easy parts," Steil said. "It says if you come to Congress, you can no longer buy individual companies' shares of stock. If you have stock you saved up maybe for a wedding or for your child's education, if you're going to sell that, you got to provide seven days advance notice. That prevents members from being able to profit off of any inside information they may garner."

The legislation now faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where most bills need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Only 13 House Democrats backed the measure after Republicans included a photo identification requirement for federal elections, and exempted the president and vice president from its stock-trading restrictions.

Steil defended the decision not to require lawmakers to place their investments in blind trusts, saying such arrangements can be costly and do not always eliminate concerns about control over financial assets.

"We looked at a number of different avenues," Steil said. "When you actually get into blind trusts, you want the blind trust to actually be blind. Some blind trusts have 20/20 vision, and the concern to get that right is it's actually incredibly expensive to set up a blind trust."

Steil also backed President Donald Trump's new tariffs targeting countries accused of failing to block imports made with forced labor.

The administration's action covers 60 economies, not 80 as stated during the interview, and imposes tariffs of 10% or 12.5%, subject to exemptions, according to the White House memorandum.

"What the president wants is, I think, what all Americans want, is free, fair, reciprocal trade," Steil said.

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