Brett Guthrie (R-KY-02), in the House since 2009 and chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee since January 2025, has a notably clean record on the dimensions most associated with self-dealing: he holds no individual common stocks and has no STOCK Act trading history, his wealth growth is documented as passive (family trusts holding private Trace Die Cast stock, not active trading or market-beating timing), and his vote-attendance record is excellent (0.7% missed). The strongest accountability signal is money-in-politics: Guthrie is the top congressional recipient of pharmaceutical, medical-device, and health-services money (over $1.8M career from pharma/health products), and as E&C chair he oversees Medicare/Medicaid/drug policy while sponsoring industry-favored legislation such as a small-molecule Medicare drug-negotiation exemption—a correlation, not proof of a quid pro quo. A secondary concern is his uncompensated board seat on family business Trace Die Cast (auto/aluminum components), in which he holds $2.3M-$10.5M, while sitting on a committee touching motor-vehicle and commerce policy and advocating aluminum-tariff exemptions. No reported campaign-funds personal-use findings or family-lobbying pipeline were found in public records.
Public record
In Congress since
2009
Committees
Energy and Commerce (Chair)
Missed votes, 119th Congress
0.6% (4 of 674; median member 1.9%)
Campaign money, 2025–26 cycle
$4.7M raised · 64% from PACs & committees · $1.7M cash on hand FEC ↗
The stock-trading ban
H.R. 7008 passage, Jul 22, 2026
Yes
Cosponsored a ban bill
None
H.R. 7008 bans new stock purchases by members, spouses and dependents; it doesn't force sales of existing holdings. The Senate vote was on the version paired with the SAVE Act, which is why no Democrat voted yes. Full breakdown →
Disclosed stock trades
No periodic transaction reports on file since 2024. That's the norm: most members don't trade individual stocks, or hold them in blind trusts and diversified funds.
Amounts are the ranges members must report, not exact values. The STOCK Act requires a report within 45 days of a trade; "late" counts days past that deadline, measured to the filing date.
How the score breaks down
Stock self-tradinghousehold / spouse
25% weight
0
Guthrie owns no individual common stocks and has no STOCK Act transaction history. Wealth is held in family trusts, mutual funds, and insurance/bank accounts, not traded equities. No volume, timing, or committee-overlap trading signal exists.
Minimum net worth rose from ~$208K (2011) to ~$7.24M (2023) on a flat $174K salary. Growth is attributed to appreciation of a 25% share in the Lowell Guthrie Irrevocable Trust (100% private Trace Die Cast stock), valued $5M-$25M by 2023. This reflects appreciation of pre-office family assets rather than salary-beating active investing; modest score reflects magnitude with strong passive/inherited explanation.
Money → action alignmentcorrelation, not proof of any quid-pro-quo
20% weight
62
CORRELATION, NOT PROOF. Guthrie is the single largest congressional recipient of pharma/health-products money ($507K in 2024; $1.8M+ career) and top House recipient from health services and medical devices, while chairing Energy & Commerce, which oversees Medicare/Medicaid and drug pricing. He sponsored H.R. 7174 to exempt small-molecule drugs from Medicare price negotiation, language echoed in PhRMA/Pfizer/Merck lobbying. High donor concentration plus aligned legislation, but no evidence of explicit quid pro quo.
No public record of campaign-committee or BRETTPAC leadership-PAC funds spent on personal benefit, and no adjudicated FEC personal-use finding was located. Absence is not penalized.
Guthrie holds an uncompensated board seat on family firm Trace Die Cast (auto/aluminum components, $2.3M-$10.5M stake, $5K-$15K annual dividends) while serving on Energy & Commerce and the Aluminum Caucus, and advocated aluminum-tariff exemptions; the company received ~$5.6M in SBA loans 2010-2012. A 2019 House rule bars board service only at public companies, so his private-firm seat is permitted. Public Citizen flagged the conflict. No evidence of family members lobbying him or a notable staff-to-lobbyist pipeline tied to office.
Vote attendance is strong: 76 of 10,730 votes missed (0.7%) over his career, better than the 2.1% median. As a new committee chair he is an aggressive fundraiser (top recipient of chair-directed PAC money), but heavy fundraising has not produced an attendance deficit; low score reflects only the fundraising-intensity factor with no missed-vote tradeoff.
Sources behind this score: 4 news reporting · 1 data aggregator · 5 reference database. Score = weighted average of the components that have data; the 1 without sourced evidence are excluded, never counted against the member. Methodology →
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