John Thune: “this evening we are going to once again vote to begin consideration of the GENIUS Act, and I am hoping that the second…”

“this evening we are going to once again vote to begin consideration of the GENIUS Act, and I am hoping that the second time will be the charm. We were here, 11 days ago, in the same place, when Democrats inexplicably chose to block this legislation. The question is, Why? Well, that is a good question. Stablecoin regulation is a bipartisan issue. This bill reflects the bipartisan consensus on this issue, and it has had an open and bipartisan process since the very beginning--what we used, around here, to call regular order. In March, the Banking Committee marked up the bill text, considering 40 amendments, and the bill ultimately passed out of the committee by a vote of 18 to 6, with support from 5 Democrats. And since then, both Republican and Democrat Members have worked to advance this legislation; that is, until a week and a half ago, when Democrats suddenly decided to block it, just as we were getting ready to have a debate on the floor. The bill brought up a week and a half ago is the exact same bill the Democrats, apparently, now, are willing to move forward on. And then, as now, Republicans were committed to a full debate on the floor, with the chance for further bipartisan amendments to the already bipartisan piece of legislation. So it is really hard to understand why we needed to wait an additional 11 days for Democrats to finally agree to move.”