The Senate cleared a key procedural hurdle Monday night to advance the GENIUS Act, a bill that would regulate stablecoins. Sixteen Democrats backed the effort in a 66-32 vote.
This is a significant achievement for the crypto industry. But the bill still has a ways to go before final passage. That vote likely won’t come until after the Memorial Day recess. And serious political risks remain.
The stakes over this Senate procedural vote were real. As we scooped Monday, the crypto sector warned senators that this cloture vote would be considered a “key vote” for the Stand with Crypto Alliance, a Coinbase-backed nonprofit that rates lawmakers on their crypto friendliness.
Senators are aware that unsupportive lawmakers could be targeted by the Fairshake super PAC network.
All things equal: The support from Democrats was significant, but not as heavy a blowout as many progressives had feared.
The Senate Democrats who voted in favor of moving ahead were Sens. Angela Alsobrooks (Md.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Jon Ossoff (Ga.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) and Mark Warner (Va.).
Ultimately, two-thirds of Democrats voted against cloture. That includes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sens. Raphael Warnock (Ga.) — who flipped his vote from “yes” to “no” before the end of the vote — and Andy Kim (N.J.). Kim voted in favor of the GENIUS Act advancing in the Senate Banking Committee earlier this year.
Republicans had their own dissenters. Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) voted against cloture, while Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) was absent.
What’s next: We wrote Monday night that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is committed to an open amendment process. That’s causing deep consternation across Washington.
Bank advocates have become acutely aware of the possibility that painful amendments could soon see floor action. That includes the dreaded Credit Card Competition Act, which would attempt to loosen the grip of the Visa and Mastercard “duopoly.”
The banking lobby is already gearing up for this fight. The Electronic Payments Coalition’s Richard Hunt told us in a statement that the CCCA would be a “legislative poison bill and, if adopted, will sink the bipartisan GENIUS Act.”
Crypto advocates aren’t sweating it.
“Within a year or two, the people who had doubts today will look back on that and wonder why they had doubts,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told reporters after the cloture vote. “I’m just a smidge ahead of some of my colleagues. But it’s only a smidge. They’re going to catch up.”
