BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Voters in New York's new 23rd Congressional District should be very familiar with the impact of Congressional insider trading.

A portion of the district is currently NY-27, where former U.S. Rep. Chris Collins was re-elected in 2018 while indicted for insider trading and resigned months later just ahead of the Department of Justice officially charging him.

"The fact that the member from this exact district had to be led away in handcuffs because they committed insider trading while on the job, it's a black eye to Western New York," Republican candidate Nick Langworthy said.

Langworthy was the Erie County Republican Committee chair at the time. He has said the committee essentially did not get involved in the 2018 race once Collins decided to remain on the ballot but the situation stuck with him.

"That's one of the reasons that I decided to run for Congress in my own right because I don't believe and I don't want the people of this district where I have been born and raised to have to continue to deal with scandal after scandal, distraction after distraction from members of Congress behaving badly," he said.

Langworthy said when it comes to the stock market, he believes Congress members on both sides of the aisle are abusing their positions, calling into question House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband's active trading. He said if elected, he plans to introduce legislation immediately banning trading for members and their spouses.

Langworthy said their current portfolios could be transferred to a blind trust.

"Let someone else manage your accounts," he said. "You have no ability to touch it."

The STOCK Act of 2012, championed by the late Rochester-area Rep. Louise Slaughter, currently prohibits members from using non-public information for private profit, but Langworthy says it should go further.

"I think we just need a full blown ban and the only way your'e going to get the trust back of the people is to do this," Langworthy said.

At the same time, the candidate is calling for his primary opponent Buffalo developer Carl Paladino to submit his own personal disclosure so the public knows where his financial interests lie.

"He's lying that he's been granted an extension because the extension comes with a letter that's published on the website saying that the extensions been granted. His staff has absolutely fabricated this story," Langworthy said.

A spokesperson for Paladino said the campaign has confirmed with the House clerk's office he is within the "grace period," continuing to say his financial disclosure is very complicated because of "all the businesses he owns and people he employs."