Senate Republicans are calling out Democrats for suddenly threatening to block legislation they once supported, suggesting that their abrupt about-face amounts to a refusal to give President Donald Trump a major legislative win.
Nine Democratic senators, led by freshman Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, announced Saturday they would oppose the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act without substantive changes — despite voting for the legislation at the committee level in March. GOP senators have torched their Democratic colleagues for “playing politics” by coming out in opposition to the major cryptocurrency legislation at the last minute.
Still, Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber are holding out hope that both parties can come to a deal.
Senate Democrats have in part justified their opposition to the crypto industry-backed legislation, citing the president’s growing ties to the industry. Trump has also embraced digital assets during the first 100 days of his second term and has vowed to make the United States the “undisputed Bitcoin superpower and crypto capital of the world.”
“So much of what I see coming from the Democrats is just out of spite about anything and everything that President Trump is for and they all of sudden are reflexively against,” Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I’m hopeful that cooler heads can prevail.”
“They [Senate Democrats] voted for it in committee,” Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville told the DCNF, referring to the four Senate Democrats who backed the legislation during a Senate Banking Committee vote in March. “For most of them, it’s just don’t do anything for Republicans or President Trump. Don’t worry about helping the American people. They care more about themselves than the taxpayers.”
A senior GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly acknowledged deep frustration with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the purportedly crypto-supportive Senate Democrats who yanked their support for the bill despite voting to advance the legislation out of committee.
The source said that Senate Democrats were frequently consulted during the bill-drafting process and that several Democratic priorities were included in the bill that advanced from the banking panel with bipartisan support.
Schumer was also supportive of crypto legislation when former President Joe Biden occupied the Oval Office. The top Senate Democrat sought to incorporate stablecoin legislation into a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill in April 2024.
The New York Democrat also claimed in August that he wanted to pass bipartisan crypto legislation. Then, he had used similar arguments made by the GENIUS Act’s proponents that creating a regulatory framework for the industry would boost innovation and the economy.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the GENIUS Act Tuesday evening, teeing up a procedural vote Thursday on the legislation that must clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold. Republican Sens. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Tim Scott of South Carolina are the primary GOP sponsors of the bill, which would enact the first regulatory framework on stablecoins, digital assets pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar.
Lummis, a leading voice on crypto legislation in Congress, told the DCNF that she wants to avoid a scenario where digital assets are seen as a partisan issue. She said after meeting with Schumer on Tuesday that he could be “part of the solution” if he’s willing to get the stablecoin legislation across the finish line.
“I’ve been working on this for four years,” Lummis told the DCNF. “It has nothing to do with Trump and it has everything to do with a segment of our economy that has enormous promise … I think that if I could persuade them to set aside their disdain for President Trump and just view this as an incredibly important new industry for the US that transcends any individual.”
“It’s time for the members to sit down together, face to face, Democrats and Republicans, and work it out at the member level,” Lummis added. “And we’re going to do that.”
Thune has signaled that Republicans will move forward with a vote on the bill despite uncertainty over whether enough Senate Democrats will back the stablecoin legislation.
“I guess my question is — when will the Democrats take ‘yes’ for an answer?” Thune asked during the Senate GOP leadership press conference Tuesday regarding the GENIUS Act, which has been amended six times. “If they have other suggestions and things that they want to incorporate into the draft, we are certainly welcome to taking a look at and working with them on that, but we need to start moving forward.”
Proponents of the GENIUS Act are hoping that the landmark stablecoin legislation will avoid the same fate as the failed International Criminal Court sanctions bill that Senate Democrats filibustered earlier in the year. Cross-party talks broke down shortly before the procedural vote with just one Senate Democrat ultimately voting to advance the sanctions bill to final passage.
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