Mitchell Berman’s first major television advertisement targeting U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil contains several misleading statements. Berman, a Raymond Democrat, alleges Steil has profited from stock trades in Washington and claims he does not accept corporate PAC money and never will. A review of the facts shows Berman is willing to say anything to get to Congress.
The joint spot with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began airing October 1 in the Milwaukee and Madison markets. Berman says Steil has done well for himself, his net worth has more than doubled, and his portfolio ranks among the best in Congress. The pitch is that Steil is the trader and Berman is the nurse who will ban the practice. But reality differs from Berman’s attack.
Steil does not trade stocks while serving in Congress. He is the lead author of the Stop Insider Trading Act, the first congressional stock-trading ban to pass the House. It cleared the chamber July 22 on a bipartisan 232-198 vote. The bill bars members, spouses, and dependent children from buying shares in publicly traded companies and requires public notice before a sale. After joining the Financial Services Committee, Steil divested the financial-services stocks he held. He has not made an individual stock trade since receiving his committee assignments. What he still holds are savings from before he was elected in 2018: a 401(k), mutual funds, and individual shares bought well before he took the oath. House ethics filings are public. A portfolio that rose over eight years in a bull market is not insider trading. Broad stock holdings roughly double in about seven years. Berman is selling ordinary market growth as a scandal.
The ban Berman now promises already exists, and his party killed it. One day before the ad hit Wisconsin television, Senate Democrats filibustered Steil’s bill. Cloture failed 53-47 on September 30, short of the 60 votes required. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tanked the insider-trading ban while trying to sink a voter-ID provision Republicans attached. Steil told Fox News Digital that no lawmaker should profit off insider information and that he would keep pushing the bill. Democrats had already blocked it once. Berman is campaigning on a promise his own party refused to pass.
The corporate-money line is the clearer fraud. Berman says he will never take corporate PAC money. The ad is a joint buy with the DCCC. That committee has taken $48.3 million from other political committees this cycle, including millions from corporate PACs. Federal filings show repeated $15,000 checks from Microsoft’s stakeholders PAC, Google’s NetPAC, Comcast and NBCUniversal, Verizon, Boeing, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, UPS, General Dynamics, and RTX. The 2026 pile also includes Pfizer, Centene, GE Aerospace, Anheuser-Busch, Oracle, Abbott, Broadcom, and AT&T’s employee PAC. NOTUS reported in August that Democrats who swear off corporate PACs still get the money once party committees that accept it fund the race. Berman’s “never will” is a slogan, but those PACs build the DCCC checkbook.
Voters in the 1st District are being asked to believe a man who will not trade stocks is the crook, and a man whose ad is underwritten by Big Tech, Boeing, and Walmart is the reformer.
