The STOCK Act requires members of Congress to disclose stock trades within 45 days. John Boozman, Republican senator from Arkansas, filed one of his trades 373 days after that deadline. Not 373 days after the trade. Three hundred and seventy-three days after the legal disclosure window had already closed. The market had that information. Boozman's constituents did not. His average lag across the window is 233 days, meaning the typical Boozman filing arrived roughly eight months late. He's been in the Senate since 2011. He knows the rules. The rules just haven't been much of a problem for him.
The Numbers, Stated Plainly
Per the late-disclosure data: 9 of Boozman's 14 filings in the tracked window were late. That's a 64.3% late rate for a sitting member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, a man with a day job that involves voting on legislation affecting agricultural commodities, rural lending, and food supply chains.
The 45-day window under the STOCK Act exists precisely because the public has an interest in knowing what their representatives own before the legislation those representatives shepherd becomes law. At an average lag of 233 days, Boozman is filing disclosures in the same calendar quarter that a subsequent Congress might be sworn in.
The 373-day outlier is the number that earns a second read. One trade, filed more than a full calendar year after the clock ran out. Whatever that trade was, the compliance apparatus of the United States Senate did not catch it, flag it, or apparently bother anyone about it for twelve-plus months.
Members who file late face a $200 fine. Two hundred dollars. For a United States senator.
The Institutional Deadpan
Members are required to disclose. They are not required to divest, recuse, abstain, or particularly care. The enforcement mechanism for a blown STOCK Act deadline is a penalty smaller than a mid-tier parking ticket in a major American city. The Senate Ethics Committee can waive even that under a hardship provision. The whole architecture of consequences was designed by the people it was designed to constrain, and it shows.
Boozman's 373-day lag didn't trigger an investigation. It triggered a late filing. Which, under the current system, is the same thing as compliance.
The Arkansas Problem
Here's where the data gets genuinely uncomfortable. Boozman doesn't appear in the late-disclosure table alone. His colleague, Katie Britt, Arkansas's junior senator, carries a 243-day maximum late lag of her own. Both members of the Arkansas Senate delegation appear simultaneously in the late-disclosure data.
The odds of two senators from the same state both landing in the same late-disclosure table at the same time are, in a fully-compliant Senate, low. Arkansas has two senators. Both of them are in this dataset. The math on that coincidence is left to the reader.
Britt has been in office since January 2023. Boozman has been there since 2011. Different tenures, different committee assignments, same state, same disclosure record. Whatever's happening in the Arkansas Senate offices, filing on time isn't the priority.
What the STOCK Act Was Supposed to Do
The STOCK Act passed in 2012 with bipartisan fanfare. It banned members of Congress from trading on material non-public information they received in their official capacity, and it created the disclosure requirement as the enforcement mechanism: if the trades are public and timely, reporters and watchdogs can check them against votes and committee work. The theory of transparency is that sunshine creates accountability.
The practice of transparency, per Boozman's filings, is that the sunshine arrives eight months late and the fine for delaying it costs less than dinner for two in Washington, D.C.
A 233-day average lag doesn't just blunt the watchdog function. It effectively eliminates it. By the time a Boozman disclosure hits the public record, any relevant vote has been cast, any relevant markup has happened, and the legislative moment has passed. The disclosure is technically present. It's just useless.
The 45-Day Clock Is Not Complicated
Senators have staff. Senators have financial advisors. Senators have legal counsel paid for in part by the taxpayer. The STOCK Act's 45-day window is not an ambiguous requirement written in legislative fine print. It's a calendar. You trade, you count 45 days, you file. That is the entire procedure.
Boozman has missed that procedure on 9 of 14 attempts in this window. His worst miss wasn't 50 days or 90 days. It was 373 days, a number that suggests the filing happened when someone eventually got around to it, not when the law said it should.
There's no public explanation for the 373-day gap. There's no apology in the public record. There's a late filing and a number, and the number is what it is.
The Closer
Boozman is up for reelection in 2026. His disclosure record is public, searchable, and, thanks to the late-disclosure data this publication tracks, now contextualized against every other member in the chamber. His 64.3% late rate ranks him in uncomfortable company.
The receipts are public. Make of them what you make of them.