She’s the queen of Capitol gains.
New Jersey congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (D.) has banked millions of dollars since coming to Congress in 2019, a review of her financial disclosures by the Washington Free Beacon shows.
In her 2019 financial disclosures, Sherrill reported assets totaling between $733,209 and $4,321,000. By 2024, those figures had ballooned to between $4,840,076 and $13,975,000. The wide swing of ranges comes because federal financial disclosure forms require each asset to be listed as between a range of values. That requirement means that Sherrill, in theory, could have only seen an asset increase of roughly $500,000, but that possibility is unlikely. Using the average of the two ranges would place Sherrill’s asset increase at just under $7 million.
Members of the House of Representatives make an annual salary of $174,000, and the meteoric rise of Sherrill’s net worth comes as a result of the exemplary performance of her stock portfolio.
Though it remains controversial, members of Congress are allowed to trade stocks as long as all transactions are assiduously reported within 30 days under the rules of the 2012 STOCK Act. Sherrill is one of the chamber’s more prolific traders, with hundreds listed on her reports since her election. In December, she paid a $400 fine after failing to disclose up to $350,000 in stock sales.
Most eyebrow-raising are the hundreds of trades Sherrill made during the coronavirus pandemic. As a member of Congress sitting on the House Armed Services Committee, she had access to information surrounding the unfolding pandemic not available to the general public.
In a flurry of purchases on Feb. 21, 2020, Sherrill bought into a number of funds that went on to post handsome profits, according to data from Nasdaq. That month she purchased up to $250,000 of iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, which has risen 62.11 percent since then. Another purchase of up to $250,000 in Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF is up 60.03 percent since Sherrill’s purchase. A third acquisition of up to $250,000 in SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Growth ETF is up 66.2 percent. A fourth purchase of up to $250,000 to Fidelity Dividend ETF for Rising Rates is up a comparatively modest 26.8 percent.
The day before, Sherrill unloaded stock in 112 individual companies, which raised eyebrows at the time from the New Jersey Globe. Team Sherrill insisted in April 2020 that the congresswoman’s move away from individual stocks had been made before the pandemic and before receiving any briefings on it. But the buying and selling kept going throughout the year, as the pandemic raged, with dozens more trades happening on July 17, records show.
Both tranches of sales came at the end of scheduled House recesses, just before the House reconvened for voting sessions, according to a 2020 House congressional calendar.
Sherrill is married to Jason Hedberg, a top official at UBS, where he serves as Head of Americas Equity Derivatives Flow, overseeing how the bank handles complex financial contracts which are tied to the stock market.
Sherrill and Hedberg currently reside in a seven-bedroom, five-bathroom mansion in Montclair, N.J. The 19th century empire Victorian is “one of the most extraordinary homes in Montclair,” a local blog gushed in 2019. Sitting on more than an acre of land, the manse features a sports court, cathedral-style ceilings, and weeping cherry trees, among other accoutrements.
A mortgage for the estate was provided by UBS, records show.
Sherrill has cosponsored legislation that would ban members from trading individual stocks, something her office said she no longer does.
“Mikie’s life has been about public service and she has been more than clear about her commitment to transparency and accountability in government,” said her spokeswoman, Carly Jones.
House members benefiting from stock trades has long been a thorny issue, most famously among former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif). The octogenarian progressive and her husband Paul Pelosi, also a financial professional, have repeatedly profited handsomely from exquisitely timed market moves, like a $3 million sale of Google stock just weeks before the Department of Justice launched an antitrust probe.
In November, Sherrill announced plans to run for governor of New Jersey. She is currently locked in a six-way Democratic primary for the state’s top job.
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