During a side event at Consensus in Toronto, Senators Gillibrand (Democrat) and Cynthia Lummis (Republican) discussed the progress of the Senate’s work on stablecoin legislation, the Genius Act. Asked whether the bill would be passed by Memorial Day (May 26), Senator Lummis said she believes that’s a fair target date, with Senator Gillibrand nodding in agreement.
In a separate Consensus interview with Congressman French Hill, who Chairs the House Financial Services Committee, he reaffirmed an expectation that both the stablecoin and financial market infrastructure bills could be ready for the President’s signature before the August recess. He said the legislation is currently on track, but they would need to “keep batting hard”. A first draft of a revised crypto market infrastructure bill was circulated last week. It builds on the FIT 21 Act passed by the House (but not the Senate) last year.
However, he noted that a key risk is the potential demands on Senate floor time, particularly with ongoing confirmation hearings of Trump administration team members. But he believes they are in an “excellent working position to move this forward.”
Circling back to the Senate’s Genius Act, Senator Gillibrand said there were significant refinements included in the latest bill around consumer protection, bankruptcy protection and ethics. Additionally, there has been strong consideration of both domestic and foreign stablecoin issuers. She stated there would be strong bipartisan support for it.
The Trump stablecoin distraction
The topic of President Trump’s crypto interests were raised, with all the panelists saying this should not distract from the need for a stablecoin bill.
“A lot of what President Trump is engaged in is already illegal,” said Senator Gillibrand, stating that the gift of an airplane from Qatar is against the emoluments clause*. “I think his issuance of a memecoin is also illegal based on current law. Again, it’s a violation of the emoluments clause. It’s literally offering anyone who wants to curry favor with the administration to just send him money. That’s about as illegal as it gets. It’s fraud. It’s corruption. It’s against the constitution.” The Senator worked as a lawyer for 15 years before joining Congress.
She continued, “I don’t think President Trump should be participating in this industry because of all the restrictions on him. But if some family member chooses to do so, or he chooses to do so in a blind trust, he is obligated to follow all the same rules as any other participant.”
The Genius Act has some ethics requirements, but is not an ethics bill per se. Senator Gillibrand quipped that it would be rather long if it had to deal with all of President Trump’s ethics problems.
Senator Lummis said she didn’t want the involvement of President Trump’s name to “distract us from the important goal of having a clear regulatory structure in the United States that can onshore this industry; that is being used to provide a new market for US Treasuries that helps the dollar to stay the world’s reserve currency.”
Impact of Trump crypto activities in the House
Turning to the House, Congressman French Hill had similar observations, saying “Despite the politics around the Trump memecoin and crypto investments – that has definitely made our work more complicated – I still argue that behind the scenes you’ve got constructive members on both sides of the Capital and in both political parties, working to find consensus.” Some House Democrats walked out of a hearing regarding the infrastructure bill last week.
Concerns of members of the House and Senate regarding President Trump’s crypto activities have been communicated to the White House and Representative Hill believes the President appreciates the importance of both the stablecoin and market infrastructure bills.
Beyond timing and political issues, he also observed that he expects stablecoins to be used for both institutional and retail use cases.
* The Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8) states that “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States] shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
