Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) released a campaign ad in response to a report that revealed her bill banning senators and their spouses from buying stocks would not apply to her spouse.
In a campaign advertisement, Baldwin accused Republican businessman and real estate mogul Eric Hovde, who is running to unseat Baldwin, of owning a $3 billion California bank that allegedly “takes millions from unknown foreign interests.”
Baldwin’s campaign video comes as Hovde called for the Wisconsin senator to reveal her partner, Maria Brisbane’s assets. Brisbane works as a wealth adviser with Morgan Stanley. Baldwin was also criticized in a video from the Fix Washington PAC for failing to “report” her “jointly owned assets” with Brisbane or Brisbane’s clients “who get rich off industries” that Baldwin reportedly regulates.
Under the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, which is sponsored by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and co-sponsored by Baldwin, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), among others, “each Member of Congress” would be required to “divest or place in a blind trust any specified investment owned by the Member,” or their spouse and a dependent of them.
A report from Daniel Lippman, a reporter with Politico, found that if passed, the bill “would not apply to relationships like Baldwin and Brisbane”:
A new bill to ban senators and their spouses from buying individual stocks that Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) touts in a new ad wouldn’t apply to Baldwin’s partner because the couple is not married, Daniel Lippman reports.
Her opponent Eric Hovde has called on Baldwin to disclose her partner’s assets. And after a super PAC ad attacked her for not reporting jointly held assets with partner Maria Brisbane, a wealth adviser at Morgan Stanley, Baldwin responded with her own ad saying that she was “leading the fight to ban sentors from purchasing any individual stocks.”
But if the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act passed, the law would not apply to relationships like Baldwin and Brisbane, even though in 2021 the couple bought a $1.3 million home together in Washington, splitting the cost of the property. As written, the law would prohibit senators, their spouses and their dependant children from trading stocks but not apply to less official relationships. The Baldwin campign noted that the bill uses the same standard for spousal and child reporting that has been in place since the passage of the Ethics in Government Act in the 1970s.
While Andrew Mamo, a campaign spokesperson for the Baldwin campaign explained to the outlet that Baldwin “follows all ethics guidelines when it comes to her financial disclosure reports,” Brisbane has not appeared on Baldwin’s Financial Disclosure Reports, though the couple has been together since 2018 and purchased a $1.3 million condo in Washington, DC.
Brisbane was reportedly given power of attorney in order to purchase the condo, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Baldwin apparently previously reported the assets with her former partner, Lauren Azar, according to the New York Post.
Brisbane founded the Brisbane Group, which is described as being a “wealth management team within Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management,” according to the Brisbane Group’s website. Brisbane also works as an Adjunct Professor of Finance with the Columbia Business School.
