<p><img src="https://static1.businessinsider.com/image/6011cd901d2df20018b7133f-2400/GettyImages-1229654010.jpg" border="0" alt="dianne feinstein" data-mce-source="Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images" data-mce-caption="Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., questions Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020."></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein says she's prepared to pay a fine for not properly disclosing one of her husband's stock purchases.</p><p>The August 2020 purchase by Richard Blum, the lawmaker's husband, involves up to $50,000 worth of shares in College Reaction LLC, a private, youth-focused polling company that recently changed its name to The Generation Lab.</p><p>In a letter to the Secretary of the Senate dated January 6the day pro-Trump insurrectionists broke into the US CapitolFeinstein acknowledged the "previously unreported transaction conducted by my spouse" that should have been disclosed weeks before.</p><div><iframe src="https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/20465147-feinstein-docs/'embed=1&title=1" title="Feinstein docs (Hosted by DocumentCloud)" width="700" height="959" style="border: 1px solid #aaa;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms"></iframe></div><p></p><p>The letter also comes as Democrats in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fec-democrats-campaign-finance-reform-commission-2020-11">House</a> and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/534776-senate-democrats-make-democracy-reform-first-bill-of-new-majority">Senate</a> have renewed a push to reform government ethics, integrity, and voting laws as part of the "<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text'q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22HR1%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=1">For the People Act of 2021</a>."</p><p>"I recognize that this untimely filing carries a monetary penalty, which I will pay upon notification from the Senate Select Committee on Ethics," wrote Feinstein, who has represented California in the Senate since 1992.</p><p>Blum is an investment banker, and the couple is worth tens of millions of dollars, according to Senate financial disclosures. The nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances">ranks</a> Feinstein among the wealthiest members of the Senate.</p><p>Feinstein's spokesman Tom Mentzer told Insider on Wednesday that the lawmaker became aware of her husband's purchase of The Generation Lab shares "in the course of a review of her husband's transactions" by his company.</p><p>"We can't speak to why it had been previously overlooked but have been ensured that personnel involved in his transactions are aware of the reporting requirements."</p><p>Feinstein has not yet been contacted by the Senate Ethics Committee on whether she will face a fine, Mentzer added.</p><p>The Generation Lab describes itself as a "polling and research firm studying young people and the trends that shape their world" and that translates "youth views and behavior for media, academia, businesses, government, and the American public."</p><p>Some of The Generation Lab's <a href="https://www.generationlab.org/insights">recent surveys</a> have tackled political topics. On Wednesday, for example, it published a poll titled, "<a href="https://www.generationlab.org/post/biden-s-youth-rebound">Biden's youth rebound</a>."</p><p>In a statement to Insider, The Generation Lab said it is "happy to confirm Mr. Blum is an investor."</p><p>Members of Congress are generally allowed to buy and sell individual stocksto the chagrin of some government reform advocatesso long as they publicly disclose the transactions.</p><p>Federal <a href="https://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/3feffe08-91b6-487f-9074-8e188cb0af62/periodic-transaction-requirements.pdf">law</a> requires senators to publicly disclose certain financial transactions of more than $1,000, such as their own and their spouses' stock trades, and do so no later than 30 days after receiving "notification" of a transaction. They have 45 days to disclose overall.</p><h2><strong><img src="https://static1.businessinsider.com/image/6011d2bb1d2df20018b71355-1787/2019-10-23t190704z_1195339165_rc1db37ce780_rtrmadp_3_facebook-congress.jpg" border="0" alt="Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg" data-mce-source="Erin Scott/Reuters" data-mce-caption="Mark Zuckerberg testifies on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, October 23, 2019."></strong></h2><h2><strong>Past scrutiny on financial trades</strong></h2><p>Other recent financial trades by Feinstein and her husband have come under scrutiny.</p><p>In January 2018, Blum purchased between $100,000 and $250,000 in Facebook stock. (Members of Congress are only required to publicly report their assets in broad ranges.)</p><p>In April that year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate's Judiciary Committee, of which Feinstein was then the Democrats' ranking member.</p><p>Not until May did Feinstein publicly disclose her husband's Facebook stock purchase, investigative journalism outfit Sludge <a href="https://readsludge.com/2018/07/11/as-feinstein-questioned-zuckerberg-an-undisclosed-investment-in-facebook/">revealed</a> later in 2018.</p><p>During January and February of 2020, shortly before the stock market crash of March 2020, Feinstein's husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock from biopharmaceutical company Allogene Therapeutics.</p><p>Feinstein <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Feinstein-denies-wrongdoing-in-stock-sale-before-15145862.php">denied doing anything improper</a>, explaining that she had no personal knowledge of the trade when it was made. Mentzer told Insider that Feinstein keeps her own stock investments in a blind trust.</p><p>In September, Blum made headlines when a <a href="http://auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2019-113.pdf">California state audit</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/24/report-faults-letter-uc-regent-richard-blum-wrote-an-applicant-berkeley-campus/">subsequent</a> news reporting, <a href="https://www.dailycal.org/2020/09/30/ca-state-auditor-report-alleges-uc-regent-richard-blum-inappropriately-influenced-campus-admissions/">revealed</a> he wrote an "inappropriate letter of support" for a wait-listed student later admitted to the University of California-Berkeley. Blum is serving his <a href="https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/members-and-advisors/bios/richard-blum.html">second 12-year term</a> as a member of the University of California system Board of Regents.</p><p>"This is the first time I've heard that maybe I did something that wasn't right," Blum <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/24/uc-regent-who-helped-unqualified-student-get-into-cal-identified-as-richard-blum-husband-of-sen-dianne-feinstein/">told</a> the San Jose Mercury News in September about that incident. "I think it's a bunch of nonsense."</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dianne-feinstein-senate-california-stock-purchase-disclosure-2021-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story »</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-most-expensive-liquid-thoroughbred-horse-semen-2020-3">Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid</a></p>
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