Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a TD Ameritrade heir and Chicago Cubs co-owner in the Senate since January 2023, presents a largely clean self-dealing profile despite enormous personal wealth. His only reported individual-stock activity was a one-time full liquidation of 25 positions (~$3.08M) on September 21, 2023, and he has since authored legislation to ban congressional stock purchases, suggesting movement away from individual-stock conflicts rather than toward them. The clearest correlation flag is financial-sector donor concentration (e.g., Incapital LLC) overlapping his Banking Committee seat, which is suggestive but not evidence of quid pro quo. No sourced evidence emerged of campaign-fund personal use, family-lobbying revolving-door conflicts, or an abnormal missed-vote/fundraising imbalance, so those components are marked insufficient-data and not penalized.
Public record
In Congress since
2023
Committees
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Environment and Public Works Foreign Relations Budget
Missed votes, 119th Congress
1.0% (9 of 915; median member 1.9%)
Campaign money, 2025–26 cycle
$11M raised · 15% from PACs & committees · $6.9M cash on hand FEC ↗
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
12
Ricketts' only reported STOCK Act individual-equity activity is a single-day liquidation on Sept 21, 2023 (25 full sales totaling ~$3.08M across 25 companies in healthcare, energy, defense, financials, etc.). The trades were sales, not purchases, and represent a one-time divestment of his individual-stock holdings rather than active timed trading. No pattern of repeated, committee-aligned, or market-timed buying. He subsequently authored the 'Stop Insider Trading Act' to ban congressional stock purchases. Low score reflects existence of trades but absence of suspicious-timing/volume/overlap evidence; some positions (General Dynamics, defense) overlap with Foreign Relations interests, hence not zero. Note: his still-large tracked equity holdings derive from pre-office/family wealth and are not scored here.
Ricketts entered office already extremely wealthy as the eldest son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs; estimates of his net worth (ranging from ~$3M disclosed-floor to ~$200M tracked) reflect pre-office family/business wealth and market movements in inherited holdings, not enrichment attributable to his Senate tenure (in office only since Jan 2023). No sourced evidence isolates tenure-driven growth beyond salary and market returns, so this is not scored.
Money → action alignmentcorrelation, not proof of any quid-pro-quo
20% weight
18
CORRELATION, NOT PROOF. Ricketts sits on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs; Environment & Public Works; Foreign Relations; and Budget. His Victory Fund's top 2024 donor was Incapital LLC (~$601,400), a financial-services firm whose sector aligns with his Banking Committee seat. As a wealthy self-financing/family-network figure, he is less donor-dependent than most, but financial-sector concentration overlapping a Banking seat is a standard influence-correlation flag. No sourced quid-pro-quo or specific vote-for-money link was found; score reflects sector-seat overlap only.
No sourced evidence of personal-benefit spending from Ricketts' campaign committee, Victory Fund, or American Excellence PAC leadership PAC. Disclosed Q1 2026 spending was conventional political vendor activity (e.g., $39,000 to Axiom Strategies for consulting, $13,750 direct mail). General watchdog concerns about leadership-PAC personal-use loopholes exist sector-wide but were not tied to Ricketts specifically. Not scored absent specific evidence.
No sourced evidence of family members lobbying tied to his office, government contracts steered to relatives, or a documented staff-to-lobbyist pipeline. The Ricketts family operates extensive private businesses (Cubs, TD Ameritrade legacy, Ricketts political networks), but no specific lobbying/contract conflict linked to his Senate office was found in public records reviewed. Not scored absent specific evidence.
GovTrack tracks Ricketts' missed-vote rate, but the specific 2024 figure and a comparison to the Senate median could not be retrieved (page returned 403). No sourced evidence of an unusually high missed-vote rate combined with heavy fundraising or paid speeches. He is actively fundraising for a competitive 2026 race, but no documented attendance problem was found. Not scored absent confirmed data.
Sources behind this score: 2 data aggregator · 2 news reporting · 4 reference database · 1 official record. Score = weighted average of the components that have data; the 4 without sourced evidence are excluded, never counted against the member. Methodology →
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