Washington, D.C. — Congressman Tom Kean Jr. promised to bring the “highest level of ethics and transparency” to Washington. Now he’s getting called out in a local newspaper for breaking his transparency promises and profiting off the stock market – all while voting for the Republican Tax Law that takes money out of the pockets of working families in his district to fund tax breaks for big corporations and millionaires (like himself).
NJ.com reports that the millionaire Congressman, as he was voting to give another tax break to the wealthy, backed away from his pledge to put his assets in a blind trust because keeping his own promise to New Jerseyans was just too darn ‘cumbersome’.
Congressman Kean Jr., with his hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual income and millions in family trusts, could see major benefits from the Republican Tax Law he voted for. To fund its tax breaks for the wealthy, the law leaves tens of thousands of New Jerseyans without health care, drives up out-of-pocket health insurance premium costs by 75%, increases energy costs, and cuts SNAP benefits for thousands of New Jerseyans.
“It’s disappointing for Congressman Kean Jr. to break his own transparency pledge less than three weeks after voting to give wealthy Americans like himself even more tax breaks,” said Unrig Our Economy Campaign Director Leor Tal. “Congressman Kean Jr. voted to make working New Jerseyans pay more for health care, food, and electricity bills. Breaking his own pledge against self-enrichment is yet another slap in the face from the Congressman to Garden State families.”
Key points from NJ.com’s story
Wealthy N.J. congressman promised saintly ethics. He chose getting richer instead, rivals say
- Tom Kean Jr. pledged not to be anything like the politician he had defeated.
- The incoming Republican congressman said he would bring the “highest level of ethics and transparency” to Washington, D.C., after winning a hotly contested election in 2022.
- Kean would move his millions in personal assets into a blind trust, he promised a day before taking office. That way, the scion of a wealthy political dynasty would avoid allegations of using a public position for private gain, like the very claims he had levied against his Democratic opponent.
- Yet two years later, Kean has backed away from that vow, saying cumbersome rules by the U.S. House Ethics Committee have left him unable to move forward with it.
- Kean “promised New Jersey voters one thing to get their votes, only to turn around and do the opposite as soon as he got to Congress,” said Eli Cousin, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
- Now he “continues to profit off the stock market despite running on a promise to ban congressional stock trading, and he has failed to put his assets in a blind trust more than two years after he pledged that he would,” Cousin said.
- Kean, who lists at least $12.4 million in assets on his most recent disclosure, was propelled to Washington in a campaign in which he hammered his Democratic predecessor, Tom Malinowski, over stock trades he’d failed to timely disclose. Kean is now in his second term, having won a hard-fought reelection in November in the 7th District, which includes the counties of Hunterdon and Warren and parts of Morris, Somerset, Sussex and Union.
- Kean informed the Ethics Committee last month that he was dropping his bid to win its approval for a blind trust, under which public officials appoint an outside manager to oversee their portfolios, without their input or knowledge about where the money is invested.
- [Kean’s] investment holdings provide him with significant income each year, and he reported making at least $270,000 from dividends, capital gains and interest in 2023 — far exceeding his $174,000 federal salary.
- To make it to Congress, Kean unsuccessfully ran against Malinowski in 2020, before unseating him in 2022. Kean repeatedly knocked the ethics of Malinowski, whose failure to timely disclose stock trades led to an ethics inquiry.
To learn more about the campaign, visit UnrigOurEconomy.com or contact press@unrigoureconomy.com
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About Unrig Our Economy
Unrig Our Economy is a national campaign to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people. We know that when the middle class does well, all of us do well — which is why we’re fighting on behalf of working Americans and holding corporations, their wealthy executives, and the politicians who enable them accountable.