Regardless of what happens, it is not the case that insider trading isn't illegal for members of Congress, except for some technicalities:

- The act of 2012 does not purport to make insider trading by congressmen illegal. Rather, it purports to make explicit that insider trading by congressmen was illegal before it was passed.

- Insider trading isn't illegal for anyone, in the particular sense that there is no law making it a crime (or any other kind of violation). It exists purely as a construct of the SEC's interpretation of a law that doesn't mention it.