News: Some Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee will meet with their Republican counterparts this week to discuss stablecoin legislation as the panel’s policymaking enters a crucial stretch.
The House Financial Services Committee, led by Chair J. French Hill (R-Ark.), will mark up a stablecoin bill next week, on April 2. The STABLE Act is a similar but distinct product from the GENIUS Act, which the Senate Banking Committee advanced before the March recess.
We’ve heard grumblings from some of the panel’s Democrats in recent weeks about the process around the stablecoin legislation, which does not currently have any bipartisan sponsors.
HFSC Republicans have drifted away from a bipartisan framework hammered out by Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and former Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) that was only released by Waters after McHenry’s retirement. Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) told us before the March recess that House Republicans “have pretty much decided to go their own way on this.”
But bipartisan sitdowns this week could give some Democrats a brief window to shape the bill before it reaches next week’s markup.
When we asked Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) how he was feeling about the House’s stablecoin legislation on Monday night, Liccardo told us he had “some meetings scheduled this week, so I don’t want to get too far out in front of those.”
A source familiar with the Republican engagement confirmed they’d be meeting with Democrats this week to discuss stablecoins — mostly crypto-curious or crypto-friendly Dems.
Liccardo said he was most concerned about the enforcement of U.S. stablecoin standards abroad. “I think we want all of our investors to be protected by U.S. laws,” the California Democrat said.
When we checked back in with Foster this week, he said his office was now weighing the best way to work with the GOP-led committee.
“We’re going to have an internal huddle in our office to understand how we’re gonna engage on crypto,” Foster said. “There’s some foundational issues, like anonymity and finality, that we just differ on with Republicans. It actually splits both parties.”
