Published 8:29 am Friday, November 6, 2026

The New York City-based Strand Book Store, owned by the wife of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, has agreed to pay the federal government nearly $1.5 million after it received funding from a pandemic-era loan program that was specifically designed not to offer money to the business of members of Congress and their spouses.

Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020 to help businesses, contractors and and certain nonprofits help stay afloat and keep their workers on the payroll during the pandemic. The initial loan program didn’t exclude businesses owned by members of Congress or their immediate families, and the $1.7 million loan Nancy Bass Wyden’s New York-based Strand Book Store received was among many similar loans granted to such businesses.

But a December 2020 law expanding the program explicitly barred businesses from obtaining that second round of funding if a member of Congress or their spouse had a significant direct or indirect stake in the…