I wonder if it makes sense to forbid members of congress from owning anything other than a narrow class of investments (for example homes and index funds, thoug

I wonder if it makes sense to forbid members of congress from owning anything other than a narrow class of investments (for example homes and index funds, though I'm surely missing many). This sounds like the old "cut their pay!" argument. The rejoinder to that argument is that it should be practical for people who aren't already wealthy to hold office, and a low salary would hurt that. This is different because the hit to potential earnings from restriction to a basic generic portfolio seems small (maybe not relative to the upside from insider trading, but to what members of congress would make as average citizens). Heck, it's still possible to trade in index funds off insider information. But the advantage seems smaller.