In 2023, former Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) was sentenced to 22 months in prison for insider trading. After the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal this May, President Trump issued Buyer a full pardon.
This development provides an opportunity to revisit and revise my earlier analysis of Buyer’s case. In 2022, I wrote that Buyer’s conviction could have placed his congressional pension at risk under reforms enacted through the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) of 2007 and the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012.
That was incorrect. Two of the crimes for which Buyer was convicted included offenses that appear on the statutory list of crimes (as compiled by the Congressional Research Service) that can trigger congressional pension forfeiture. But at the time, I overlooked an important restriction: the pension-forfeiture provisions apply to the listed crimes committed while serving as a member of Congress or while serving as president, vice president, or as an elected official of a state or local government.
But Buyer’s conduct leading to his conviction happened after he had left Congress, while he was working as a consultant and lobbyist. That means his congressional pension was not subject to forfeiture under current law for the charges against him. Credit for catching that point goes to Grace Randolph of the Indianapolis Star, who asked me sharp follow-up questions this week while digging into the consequences of Buyer’s recent presidential pardon.
Buyer’s case exposes a gap in pension forfeiture laws. Congress has recognized that taxpayers should not be required to pay pension benefits to lawmakers who abuse public office for personal gain. However, current law does not fully account for Washington’s revolving door. Former lawmakers can parlay the access, relationships, and name recognition they built up through public service into lucrative lobbying or consulting businesses. When violations under HLOGA or the STOCK Act occur during that post-congressional work, taxpayers may still be left paying the pension.
Reforms could extend pension-forfeiture rules to former members who are convicted of covered corruption, fraud, or insider-trading offenses tied to their post-congressional influence work.This would reinforce the ethos that public service should not become a taxpayer-subsidized platform for later self-dealing.
Buyer’s estimated starting pension is $47,946, accounting for the standard spousal survivor benefit set-aside. Spouses are automatically covered unless they decline the benefit. Buyer served in Congress from 1993 through early 2011, giving him enough years of federal service to qualify for a reduced early congressional pension when he reached age 55 at the end of 2014. While the exact amount he has received over time is not publicly available, his eligibility for retirement benefits began years before his criminal conviction.
That points to another longstanding problem: the lack of transparency surrounding taxpayer-funded pensions for former members of Congress. The government does not disclose how much individual former lawmakers receive in retirement benefits. As a result, taxpayers are often left to rely on estimates rather than official figures when evaluating the costs of congressional pensions.
NTUF research using the most recent publicly available Congressional Research Service data found that, as of October 1, 2022, 619 former members of Congress received taxpayer-funded pensions at an estimated annual cost of $38.3 million. But taxpayers still do not know how much individual former lawmakers receive, making it hard to assess the cost of congressional pensions or whether pension-forfeiture laws are being implemented and enforced as intended.
Presidential pardons after appeals have expired raise questions about whether well-connected former officials are being held to the same standards as everyone else. Members and former members should be held to high standards of accountability. Pardons undermine that accountability that taxpayers deserve.
NTUF has helped identify and close congressional pension loopholes before. After NTUF found that former members remained eligible to collect their congressional pensions while pursuing appeals from prison, lawmakers eventually enacted the No CORRUPTION Act in 2024 to cut off pension payments after sentencing rather than waiting until all appeals were exhausted.
More recently, after NTUF helped reveal that former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) would still be eligible for his taxpayer-funded congressional pension even if convicted of their alleged conduct, lawmakers from across the aisle introduced legislation to expand the list of crimes that would trigger pension forfeiture.
Buyer’s case reveals another loophole. Even without the pardon, he would have remained eligible for a congressional pension despite being convicted of insider trading after leaving office. Former members should not be able to use the access, relationships, and name recognition gained through public service to break the law, and still rely on taxpayers to fund their retirement. Lawmakers should close this loophole, too.