I wouldn't really put real estate in the group of investments that's OK, depending on details. There's plenty of stories of well-connected people frontrunning

I wouldn't really put real estate in the group of investments that's OK, depending on details. There's plenty of stories of well-connected people frontrunning government endeavors that require lots of land. Sometimes that has positive results: civic minded person buys up land without raising eyebrows, then sells it to government for a song; sometimes it's negative: less civic minded person buys up land and then sells it to government or others for much more than they purchased it for, in large part because of official decisions they participated in. I know some states have part time legislatures, so the members often have other jobs, but a federal office is a full time job, year round, regardless of recesses. I don't think it's unreasonable to demand that office holders avoid potential conflicts of interest by avoiding any sort of investment outside of personal residences and well diversified mutual funds (and well diversified ETFs). Plus or minus rental housing owned prior to office. It's not that big of an imposition, unless your spouse is an active stock trader (for work or hobby), but in that case... Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for a spouse's career.