Nevada senators oppose crypto bill amid ethics dispute

Nevada senators vote no

Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen joined their Democratic Senate colleagues and several Republicans in rejecting the cryptocurrency measure Tuesday. The House had passed the CLARITY Act the previous year, and the crypto industry viewed it as a way to establish federal rules and expand digital assets’ place in the financial system.

Cortez Masto had also voted against advancing the measure from the Senate Banking Committee in May. At that meeting, however, she said Congress needed market-structure legislation and that she had worked with senators from both parties on rules for the growing industry. She said her goal was to address criminal activity without treating ordinary software developers as criminals, while giving cryptocurrency users clearer standards.

Rosen joined Cortez Masto in opposing the measure when it reached the full Senate.

Ethics language divides supporters

The bill’s ethics provisions would not have prevented President Donald Trump from continuing to conduct and profit from cryptocurrency transactions while serving as president. That issue led Democrats who had shown interest in cryptocurrency legislation to withhold support.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat who voted to advance the bill from committee in May, said after the Senate vote that he would not support legislation he believed enabled Trump.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees welcomed the bill’s rejection. The union argued that the legislation would have made it easier for pensions and 401(k) plans to invest workers’ retirement savings in volatile and lightly regulated cryptocurrency products.

The Senate rejection leaves unresolved both the push for federal cryptocurrency rules and the dispute over whether those rules should restrict a president’s personal digital-asset activity.