Tony Wied

WASHINGTON - Throughout this Congress, U.S. Republican Rep. Tony Wied has repeatedly bought and sold stocks of financial, railroad and farming companies while simultaneously serving on committees that oversee those industries and drafting legislation that could affect the businesses in his personal portfolio.

Wied, a first term member who represents Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District, sits on the House Small Business, Agriculture and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, panels that have jurisdiction over business, transportation and agricultural topics. The posts provide him broader insight into these topics than the public.

The congressman has frequently executed trades, including of Visa Inc., Canadian National Railway Co. and Tractor Supply Co., during this Congress, according to federal disclosure records.

Wied has has not be accused of wrongdoing and there’s no evidence he has broken congressional rules. But federal ethics experts who reviewed his disclosures for the Journal Sentinel said Wied’s trading activities raise questions about conflicts of interest between his personal life and government duties.

The gray area only stresses the need for changes to Congress' stock trading rules, they said.

"It is important ... not to rush into conclusions, whether Representative Wied was acting in the interest of his portfolio or in a true interest of his constituents, but there is a fundamental tension here," said Vladlena Klymova, policy analyst at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a right-of-center fiscal watchdog group.

"Disclosure does not prevent the tension, but rather reveal the tension. ... The public is left to wonder whether those decisions were made on their behalf or in the personal interest of representatives."

Members of U.S. Congress are required to disclose any transaction of stocks, bonds or other securities held by themselves, their spouse or dependent children when the gross amount of a single transaction exceeds $1,000. The filing is called a periodic transaction report, or PTR.

Wied is the only member of Wisconsin's U.S. congressional delegation who filed PTRs during the 119th Congress.

However, he's not the only member who owns stocks. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican representing Wisconsin's 1st district, owned a range of stocks in companies like Caterpillar Inc. and Ford Motor Co., according to his most recent annual disclosure covering 2025. Steil has not filed any PTRs since 2019.

In a statement, Wied did not respond to questions about his stock holdings. He instead criticized U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., for voting against a stock trading measure that had Republican support. His office told the Badger Project earlier this year that an independent financial adviser manages his stock accounts.

Klymova specifically pointed to a handful of trades in February, when Wied disclosed two stock sales of Block Inc., a digital payment company, and a purchase of Visa Inc. stock. Each transaction was individually worth between $50,000 and $100,000, according to federal disclosures.

In early March, the House Agriculture Committee, of which Wied is a member, took up its massive farm bill that authorizes billions of dollars for federal agriculture programs.

When the bill passed the House in April, Wied's office touted his amendment that would make permanent a previous farm bill's temporary prohibition on processing fees for Electronic Benefits Transfer cards – a change that would impact companies like Visa and Block, who earn from SNAP/EBT transaction fees.

"That was happening within the short increment of time, and that creates a clear conflict of interest or an appearance of such," Klymova said. "That is a big problem, which honestly can be solved by banning or restricting purchases of individual securities by public officials, and specifically, congressmen."

Another federal ethics expert familiar with the stock trading issue confirmed to the Journal Sentinel the trades would "absolutely raise questions" as to whether Wied is using his position as a public official on behalf of his personal financial interests, "even if they don't rise to the level of insider trading."

Wied's trades overlap with small business, transportation committees

Aside from the House Agriculture Committee, Wied also sits on committees covering transportation, infrastructure and small-business policy.

In April, Wied was appointed as the top Republican of the Small Business Committee's contracting and infrastructure subcommittee, giving him the authority to set the sub-panel's legislative agenda, oversight inquiries and other functions.

According to the committee website, the panel works to "assess the federal procurement system, including those programs designed specifically to enhance participation by small businesses in providing goods and services to the federal government."

After taking that role, Wied a few months later disclosed several transactions involving companies that could overlap with the committee's jurisdiction – including computer software company Adobe Inc., customer management software company Salesforce Inc., web marketing company Hubspot Inc., and marketing automation company Trade Desk Inc.

He continues to buy and sell stocks of these companies, including a number of transactions worth between $15,000 and $50,000 in August and a few more in September. Those disclosures include more transactions of digital enterprise companies like ServiceNow Inc., an AI business platform, and Upstart Holdings Inc., an AI lending marketplace.

In February 2025, Wied completed two transactions worth between $50,000 and $100,000 of Tractor Supply Co., a chain store catering to farmers, and another sale of Canadian National Railway Co. worth the same amount, according to disclosures.

Concerns over conflicts of interests in lawmakers' stock holdings is hardly new, nor that uncommon. A 2022 New York Times report found that nearly one-fifth of U.S. lawmakers between 2019 and 2021 reported trades that intersected with the work of committees on which they serve. Wied was not a member of U.S. Congress at that time.

Latest stock trading bill voted down in the Senate

The congressional stock trading ban has blossomed into a campaign issue in Wisconsin, especially for Steil. In a recent campaign ad, Steil touted his bill to rein in stock trading in Congress. His opponent, Democrat Mitchell Berman, has also seized on the issue, proclaiming in a campaign ad, "Bryan Steil and I both chase bucks. The difference is, mine has antlers."

Steil's bill, called the Stop Insider Trading Act, passed in the House but recently failed in the U.S. Senate after Democrats said the bill doesn't go far enough. Wisconsin's Baldwin was among those who voted against it.

Proponents of Steil's bill, like Klymova, argue it would place sensible guardrails on U.S. lawmakers' trading while still preserving "their right to private property or to invest in the market."

"It does eliminate the most important thing, which is purchasing stocks," she said. "It does have a requirement to disclose sales, so they can they could still sell certain individual stocks with prior disclosure, but I think purchases is what is important."

Other federal ethics groups, like the Project on Government Oversight and the Campaign Legal Center, argue it should ban stock sales by members of Congress outright and also require lawmakers to sell their holdings before entering Congress.

"Today’s vote makes it clear that some lawmakers won’t be fooled by an imposter stock trading ban. Instead of trying to jam through a watered-down bill riddled with loopholes and saddled with a poison-pill provision on voting rights, the bill’s backers should focus on passing a genuine, bipartisan ban that stops members of Congress from using inside knowledge to benefit their personal stock portfolios," said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of POGO, in a statement after the Senate vote.

Valerie Yurk can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @valerie_yurk.