Which Party Files Late? STOCK Act Compliance by Party
Republicans file late more often. As of October 29, 2026, Republicans in Congress reported 16.5% of their disclosed transactions more than 45 days after the trade date, the STOCK Act’s deadline, against 1.4% for Democrats. Counted member by member the gap is smaller: the median Republican with 10 or more dated transactions is late on 7.4% of them, the median Democrat on 0.9%. Much of the Republican total sits with two members, Alan Armstrong and Michael T. McCaul, who account for 53% of the party’s late transactions.
Key numbers
- As of October 29, 2026, Republicans in Congress reported 16.5% of their disclosed transactions (1,826 of 11,040) more than 45 days after the trade date, the STOCK Act’s deadline, against 1.4% for Democrats (260 of 18,169). The count covers House reports filed since January 1, 2023 and Senate reports filed since January 6, 2026.
- Counting each member once, the median Republican member of Congress with 10 or more dated transactions reported 7.4% of them more than 45 days after the trade, and the median Democrat 0.9% (72 Republicans and 49 Democrats, as of October 29, 2026).
- Of the members of Congress with at least one dated transaction on record as of October 29, 2026, 48 of 92 Democrats (52%) and 67 of 123 Republicans (54%) have reported at least one more than 45 days after the trade.
- Among members of Congress with 10 or more dated transactions as of October 29, 2026, 11 of 72 Republicans and 4 of 49 Democrats reported half or more of theirs more than 45 days after the trade, while 23 Republicans and 19 Democrats never reported one that late.
- By chamber, as of October 29, 2026, Republican senators reported 61.2% of their transactions more than 45 days after the trade, Republican House members 9.2%, Democratic House members 1.4% and Democratic senators 1.1%; the Senate figures cover reports filed since January 6, 2026.
- Alan Armstrong and Michael T. McCaul account for 961 of the 1,826 Republican congressional transactions reported more than 45 days after the trade as of October 29, 2026 (53%); without each party’s two members with the most late transactions, Republicans reported 14.0% late and Democrats 1.1%.
The STOCK Act gives a member of Congress no more than 45 days after a trade to report it. This page splits that record by party; the member-by-member record is in the late-filer ranking. The answer depends on how you count, so the figures below are given both ways.
Two ways to count the same filings
The transaction-weighted frame is dominated by whoever trades the most. The member-weighted frame gives a senator with 12 trades the same vote as a representative with 12,000. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions. The first asks what share of the disclosures that reach the public are late. The second asks what a member of each party typically does. The table shows both.
| Measure | Democrats | Republicans |
|---|---|---|
| Members with 3+ dated disclosures | 70 | 96 |
| Dated disclosures | 18,169 | 11,040 |
| Filed past 45 days | 260 | 1,826 |
| Filed past 90 days | 212 | 1,517 |
| Share late, every trade counted once | 1.4% | 16.5% |
| Median lag, days | 24 | 27 |
| Members with 10+ dated disclosures | 49 | 72 |
| Typical member’s share late (median) | 0.9% | 7.4% |
| Average member’s share late (mean) | 12.2% | 21.0% |
| Members with at least one late filing | 30 of 49 | 49 of 72 |
| Members never late | 19 of 49 | 23 of 72 |
| Members late on half or more of their trades | 4 of 49 | 11 of 72 |
| Every member: at least one late filing | 48 of 92 | 67 of 123 |
Read the bottom rows together. Most members of both parties have missed the deadline at least once (30 of 49 Democrats, 49 of 72 Republicans), and a similar number in each party have never missed it. The parties separate at the tail: 11 Republicans are late on half or more of everything they file, against 4 Democrats. The mean is pulled toward that tail in both parties, which is why the mean sits well above the median on both sides.
Widen the count to every member with even one dated disclosure and the parties are close to even on whether they have ever been late: 48 of 92 Democrats (52%) and 67 of 123 Republicans (54%) have filed at least one trade past the deadline. Counted by member, missing the deadline is bipartisan. Counted by trade, it is not: the gap above comes from how much each late filer files late, not from how many members ever do.
Where the gap lives
Split by chamber and the picture sharpens. In the House, Republican disclosures are late 9.2% of the time and Democratic ones 1.4%. In the Senate, Republican disclosures are late 61.2% of the time by transaction count, a figure that belongs almost entirely to two senators rather than to the caucus.
| Party · chamber | Disclosures | Late | % late (trades) | Median lag | Members (10+) | Typical member % late | Never late |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democrats · House | 17,545 | 253 | 1.4% | 24d | 44 | 1.1% | 16 of 44 |
| Democrats · Senate | 624 | 7 | 1.1% | 24d | 5 | 0.0% | 3 of 5 |
| Republicans · House | 9,485 | 874 | 9.2% | 26d | 63 | 6.3% | 19 of 63 |
| Republicans · Senate | 1,555 | 952 | 61.2% | 113d | 9 | 17.8% | 4 of 9 |
The concentration problem
Both parties’ headline numbers are hostage to a handful of members, in opposite directions. On the Republican side, the two latest filers account for 961 of the party’s 1,826 late disclosures, 53% of them. On the Democratic side the two latest filers hold 70 of 260, 27%, but the Democratic denominator is itself dominated by a single very active House member whose filings are almost always on time, which pushes the party’s transaction-weighted rate toward zero.
| Latest filers by party | Disclosures | Filed late | % late |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alan Armstrong R · senate · OK | 708 | 701 | 99.0% |
| Michael T. McCaul R · house · TX | 4,137 | 260 | 6.3% |
| Thomas H Tuberville R · senate · AL | 193 | 177 | 91.7% |
| Jonathan Jackson D · house · IL | 201 | 37 | 18.4% |
| Rick Larsen D · house · WA | 94 | 33 | 35.1% |
| David Trone D · house · MD | 35 | 28 | 80.0% |
Remove each party’s two latest filers and recount every trade once: Republicans are late on 14.0% (865 of 6,195) and Democrats on 1.1% (190 of 17,874). The gap survives the trim. It is smaller than the headline, larger than the median-member comparison, and probably the fairest single number on this page.
What this does and does not say
The direction is consistent across every frame we tried: transaction-weighted, member-weighted, by chamber, with and without the outliers. Republicans miss the 45-day window more often than Democrats. The magnitude is not consistent, and any single figure quoted without its frame overstates or understates the difference. A late filing is a compliance fact about disclosure timing, not evidence about the trade itself or about the member beyond the filing. For what the market does during the window between trade and disclosure, see What Stocks Do Before Congress Discloses, and for how each party’s purchases did against the S&P 500, see Do Democrats or Republicans Trade Stocks Better?
Methodology and honest caveats
Lag is disclosure date minus transaction date, both verbatim from the filings, with the same 0-to-1000-day sanity window as the late-filer ranking to exclude source-document date typos. Party comes from the unitedstates/congress-legislators roster, applied to every filer we track. Member-weighted rows require at least 10 dated disclosures; the party totals use every member with 3 or more. Only Democrats and Republicans are compared: 5 filers who are independents or still lack a party in our roster (20 dated disclosures between them, 1 late) are excluded from both columns. A member who appears in the roster under two spellings is counted once. How filings are parsed is set out in the methodology. Filers are a subset of Congress: a member who never traded has no compliance record and does not appear. Figures are computed live and update as new filings arrive, so the numbers above may differ from the ones quoted the day this was published.
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Coldpine is a publisher of intelligence on public Congressional disclosures. Filing lags are computed from dates in the public filings and describe disclosure timing only; they are not evidence of wrongdoing by any member or party. This is informational only, not investment advice, and not a suggestion to buy, sell, or copy anyone’s trades.