The seven senators who refused want tougher language on official conduct, consumer protection and illicit money, and are drafting a version of their own; Lummis says the weeks ahead are probably the last real opening for years.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would build a regulatory framework for digital commodities, and Republicans hope the reworked ethics terms will draw the bipartisan support the bill needs.
The full text sharpens a fight over who holds enforcement power, how consumers are protected and how the financially excluded are served. Senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Bernie Moreno of Ohio unveiled the ethics agreement, presenting it as the groundwork for a renewed bipartisan push.
Seven Democratic senators refused it. Catherine Cortez Masto, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper, Mark Warner and Raphael Warnock signed a joint statement calling the Republican-drafted ethics language unworkable and unserious. They said the current draft does not go far enough — that its core pieces on official conduct, consumer protection, illicit money, competing interests and honest markets all need toughening — and vowed to keep talking with Republicans while advancing a version of their own.
Lummis pressed the urgency. She called the weeks ahead probably the last genuine opening for years to get the legislation right, thanked Democratic colleagues for what they had added to the draft, and said she is determined to strike a deal within days that would let the bill be enacted.
The financial industry is split as well. Goldman Sachs chairman and chief executive David Solomon broke from the rest of Wall Street to back moving the bill forward, saying in an interview that he is very supportive of putting market structure in place. The Bank Policy Institute, by contrast, said the latest draft still leaves its concerns unresolved — that a workable rulebook must keep everyday borrowers able to get credit, block wrongdoers from anonymously funding unlawful ventures, and defend national security.
Even with the fresh ethics deal, lawmakers have a great deal left to do before they can line up the 60 votes needed to advance the bill. There is still time before the midterm elections for a bipartisan compromise to build support, and how it ends remains unclear.
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