The Senate’s effort to advance the Clarity Act has hit another obstacle after Democrats rejected ethics language backed by the White House, prompting bipartisan negotiations on a revised proposal, Politico reported Thursday.
Lawmakers remain divided over ethics provisions designed to address President Donald Trump’s potential financial gains from crypto ventures.
The ethics provisions released on Wednesday as part of the updated Clarity Act would bar senior federal officials, including the president, from issuing or sponsoring digital assets while in office and give the Department of Justice exclusive authority to enforce the ethics rules.
Democrats have dismissed the language, saying they cannot support language that leaves enforcement exclusively to the DOJ.
Sen. Ruben Gallego described the proposal as inadequate after months of bipartisan negotiations, arguing the final language failed to reflect the work Democrats and Republicans had done together on the issue.
The ethics language was crafted through discussions between the White House and Republican Sens. Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno. Lummis praised the proposal, saying Trump is voluntarily embracing ethics standards that exceed existing legal requirements and represent the toughest rules ever applied to the presidency.
Gallego said negotiations with Lummis, Moreno and White House officials broke down over whether state attorneys general should have enforcement authority. He said he is now working alongside Sen. Thom Tillis and other unnamed Republican senators to draft a counterproposal that will be presented to negotiators.
Tillis said the White House-backed proposal was a positive starting point but acknowledged that additional changes would likely be needed to attract the 60 votes required for Senate passage. He said lawmakers still need to meet with the White House to determine whether further revisions acceptable to Democrats would also be acceptable to President Trump.
The unresolved ethics debate has clouded the outlook for crypto legislation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he no longer expects the chamber to pass the bill before the August recess, though he hopes to at least begin debate on the measure before lawmakers adjourn.