The Senate voted Wednesday to advance legislation setting up a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, bringing the crypto bill one step closer to a final vote in the upper chamber.
Eighten Democrats voted with almost every Republican to end debate on an updated version of the GENIUS Act.
The new bill text was reached as part of lengthy negotiations between Republicans and crypto-friendly Democrats last month, ahead of an earlier procedural vote on the Senate floor.
The vote breakdown was largely similar to the May vote, although the bill picked up support from Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) while Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) switched her vote to oppose the measure.
Blunt Rochester had supported the bill both in the Senate Banking Committee in March and on the Senate floor last month.
She voiced some hesitation Tuesday about Senate leadership’s decision to forgo an open amendment process on the GENIUS Act, emphasizing she hoped to see additional changes to the bill.
“I was really clear,” she told The Hill. “I hoped that there would be an open amendment process, and that’s what I heard Leader Thune say around last month, so I will take a look at this language, and we’ll make a decision from there.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) ultimately scrapped the push for so-called “regular order,” as controversial amendments — most notably, Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-Kan.) Credit Card Competition Act — threatened to upend support for the bill.
The GENIUS Act likely faces a handful more votes before it can clear the Senate and head to the House. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told The Hill on Tuesday that she expects a final vote on the bill next week.
