BREAKING: Bill Huizenga Says He’s Fighting to Ban Stock Trading. His Record Shows Years of Individual Stock Holdings and Trades.

New reporting reveals despite ads “praising” Bill Huizenga for “backing a ban” on stock trading, Huizenga spent 15 years in Washington holding and trading individual stocks while saying he had “mixed feelings” about a stock trading ban and feared it was “an overreaction.”

GET THE FACTS:

• HUIZENGA LIE: Huizenga told the Detroit News back in 2022 that he “sold off his stock portfolio before he joined the Financial Services Committee because he felt it was important to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
• FACT: Huizenga’s financial disclosures show he “reported owning Johnson Controls stock from 2010 through 2017, including throughout his first seven years on the committee” and that its value increased by potentially tens of thousands of dollars. What’s more, reporting finds that Huizenga’s investment “overlapped with actions he took in Congress involving issues important to the company.”
• FACT: Huizenga also “continued to own…Gentex Corp. stock” with value that also increased by potentially tens of thousands of dollars.
• HUIZENGA LIE: Huizenga’s spokesperson claimed Huizenga “has made zero stock purchases since” joining Financial Services.
• FACT: Business Insider reported on a Periodic Transaction Report filed by Huizenga in 2021 disclosing the purchase of stock in Grey Cloak Tech Inc. The “filing also appears to have been submitted after the reporting deadline.”
• HUIZENGA LIE: Huizenga pretends he’s been fighting to ban stock trading by members of Congress.
• FACT: Huizenga said he had “mixed feelings” about a stock trading ban and feared it was “an overreaction.” He refused to support a bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on a full stock trading ban.

DCCC Spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Bill Huizenga held and traded individual stocks, called a stock trading ban ‘an overreaction,’ and even voted against a ban on insider trading and now is lying about his record. Huizenga is comically self-serving and none of his lies can cover up his record working for himself while selling out Michiganders.”

Detroit Metro Times: Ads praise Huizenga for stock-trading ban. His disclosures show years of stock ownership

The Republican congressman owned Johnson Controls stock while taking congressional action on issues important to the company.

• An outside group is spending nearly $1 million on ads praising U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga for backing a ban on congressional stock trading.
• But the West Michigan Republican’s record on the issue includes years of individual stock ownership while serving on the House Financial Services Committee, past skepticism of a trading ban, and a stock purchase disclosed in 2021 after his campaign says he had stopped buying individual stocks.
• In 2022, as lawmakers in both parties pushed for tougher restrictions [on banning members stock trading], Huizenga told The Detroit News he had “mixed feelings” about a ban and said he wanted to make sure Congress wasn’t engaging in “an overreaction.” He questioned how lawmakers with family businesses or publicly traded investments would comply with such restrictions.
• The same Detroit News story reported that Huizenga said he had “sold off his stock portfolio before he joined the Financial Services Committee” because he believed it was important to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
• A Huizenga spokesman now says the congressman stopped purchasing individual stocks after joining the committee and gradually disposed of investments he made before entering Congress.
• [The spokesman] added that Huizenga “has made zero stock purchases since.”
• Financial disclosures reviewed by Metro Times, however, raise questions about both assertions.
• Huizenga joined the House Financial Services Committee almost immediately after entering Congress in 2011. His own office announced in January 2011 that he was attending his first full committee hearing and noted that the panel had jurisdiction over “securities and exchanges.”
• Yet Huizenga’s annual financial disclosures show that he reported owning Johnson Controls stock from 2010 through 2017, including throughout his first seven years on the committee. Depending on the year, the holding was valued at between $1,001 and $50,000.
• His financial disclosure covering 2017, which he filed in August 2018, still listed between $15,001 and $50,000 in Johnson Controls stock. 
• The same disclosure also shows Huizenga continued to own between $15,001 and $50,000 in Gentex Corp. stock. Gentex, based in Zeeland, develops and manufactures technology for the automotive, aerospace, and commercial fire-protection industries. Huizenga had reported owning Gentex shares since at least 2010.
• The reported value of the Gentex holding was between $1,001 and $15,000 when Huizenga entered Congress and moved into the $15,001-to-$50,000 disclosure range by 2016.
• The records also appear to conflict with the campaign’s broader assertion that Huizenga has made “zero stock purchases” since joining the Financial Services Committee.
• A Periodic Transaction Report filed by Huizenga on March 19, 2021, disclosed a Dec. 7, 2020 purchase of between $1,001 and $15,000 in Grey Cloak Tech Inc., a publicly traded company that later changed its name to Healthy Extracts Inc. The form lists the stock as jointly owned.
• The disclosure doesn’t identify who initiated the jointly owned purchase, but Huizenga was required to report it under the STOCK Act.
• The filing also appears to have been submitted after the reporting deadline. Huizenga’s form says the transaction occurred Dec. 7, 2020, and that he was notified of it Jan. 29, 2021. He filed the report March 19, 102 days after the transaction and 49 days after the reported notification date.
• House Ethics rules require members to report qualifying securities transactions by the earlier of 30 days after learning of a transaction or 45 days after it occurs.
• That would have required the Grey Cloak transaction to be disclosed no later than about Jan. 21, making the March 19 report roughly 57 days late.
• Huizenga’s Johnson Controls investment also overlapped with actions he took in Congress involving issues important to the company.
• In 2012, while reporting ownership of Johnson Controls stock, Huizenga led a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner raising national security concerns about a Chinese company’s proposed acquisition of bankrupt battery maker A123 Systems. Johnson Controls had initially sought to acquire much of A123 before losing out to China’s Wanxiang Group. 
• In 2017, while Huizenga still reported owning Johnson Controls shares, the company was challenging a Department of Energy testing rule involving central air conditioners and heat pumps. Johnson Controls filed a petition for review of the rule in federal court that March.
• Huizenga also didn’t sign a bipartisan discharge petition filed in December 2025 seeking to force consideration of separate legislation that would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from both trading and owning individual stocks. The petition was signed by lawmakers from both parties.
• Huizenga has also previously opposed legislation aimed at insider trading more generally.
• In 2019, he was one of just 13 House members to vote against the Insider Trading Prohibition Act, which would have explicitly defined and prohibited insider trading under federal securities law. The bill passed 410-13. Huizenga had unsuccessfully offered an amendment to the legislation and said he opposed the final bill because he believed its definition of insider trading was too broad.

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