WASHINGTON, D.C. — Landmark cryptocurrency legislation, one of the signature efforts of U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, collapsed Thursday on the Senate floor despite exhaustive, 11th-hour efforts by the Wyoming Republican and her GOP colleagues to rescue it.
“I have to say, frankly, I just don’t get it,” Senate Republican Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, said on the floor after a procedural move to advance the measure failed by a wide margin.
Lummis’s office immediately released a statement that said in part: “I’m deeply disappointed that we were unable to pass this important, bipartisan-crafted stablecoin legislation today. Make no mistake, digital assets are the future and America must lead the way.”
Before the vote, Lummis, who leads the Senate Banking Committee’s subpanel on digital assets, gave a floor speech thanking President Donald Trump for sharing her leadership on cryptocurrency regulation.
She also said: “I want to make clear this is not a partisan issue.”
But no Democrats voted for the bill, which was authored in large measure by Lummis.
Some Democrats who originally supported the bill did an about-face, and Trump may have had a hand in the bill’s demise.
Congressional Democrats have spent this whole week highlighting Trump and his family’s involvement in the cryptocurrency business, accusing them of self-dealing. They have pointed to $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, along with foreign investment in a Trump-linked crypto trading platform to make their case.
Some Democrats also said Thursday that the vote was rushed, and that broad concerns beyond Trump have yet to be addressed.
GENIUS Act
Thursday’s vote was on the GENIUS Act, which stands for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins. With 60 votes needed to advance it for a final vote instead of a simple majority of 51, the tally was 48 in favor and 49 against.
The vote was so lopsided that Thune changed his vote from yes to no, just so he could be in the majority and make a motion to bring the bill back up at a later time. It was not immediately clear when that might happen.
So bad was the defeat that two Democrats who co-sponsored the original version of the GENIUS Act — U.S. Sens. Kristin Gillibrand of New York and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland — voted no on the version under consideration Thursday.
This, after Thune thanked those two before the vote for their work on the bill.
The bill’s most recent version, according to Thune — the one voted on Thursday — was its sixth.
‘Years’ In The Works
The GENIUS Act passed the Banking Committee by an 18-6 count in March, with five Democrats in support.
But as Trump and his family business’s involvement in cryptocurrency took off, Democrats backed away, leading to the frantic and ultimately futile attempts to salvage the bill.
Thune and Lummis said Banking Committee members on both sides of the aisle spent long hours this week trying to patch up differences.
“We have been working for days recently to bring this bill to the floor,” Lummis said before the vote, adding that she has spent “years” on the legislation altogether.
Lummis is known as the “Crypto Queen” for her congressional leadership on digital assets.
Some Democrats this week said the GENIUS Act does not go far enough to prevent corruption — and some introduced their own bills which they say are needed to do just that.
New Bills
At least two Senate bills were introduced this week by Democrats this week that take direct aim at Trump and the family’s cryptocurrency ventures. One is the End Crypto Corruption Act and the other is the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement Act.
Gillibrand, a co-sponsor of the GENIUS Act when it was approved in committee, is now a co-sponsor of the End Crypto Corruption Act.
Lummis was one of the co-sponsors of the original GENIUS Act and remained a co-sponsor of the final version.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, voted with Lummis on Thursday in the failed move to advance the GENIUS Act’s final version.
It was not clear exactly Thursday how the latest version has changed since the committee vote in March. But in general, it calls for a massive framework to regulate stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar.
It is meant to facilitate commerce while safeguarding the economy as a whole and providing tools to combat money laundering and other crimes. Thune said “hundreds of billions of dollars” worth of stablecoins are currently in circulation.
Sean Barry can be reached at sean@cowboystatedaily.com.