Justin Slaughter, Paradigm’s vice president of regulatory affairs and a former senior adviser at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is confident that the much-talked-about Clarity Act should not be completely written off despite the US Senate recently deciding to delay the bill’s consideration until September.
Slaughter recently took to the X social media network to state that the legislation “isn’t dead,” though he acknowledged that its odds of passage have become considerably longer following the delay.
An unfortunate delay
The Senate was initially expected to hold a procedural vote on the crypto market structure bill before lawmakers departed for the August recess.
However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the vote would instead be pushed to September after negotiations stalled.
According to Slaughter, the bill now faces a very narrow three-week Senate session during the height of election season.
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There is some hope that the bill could pass during the post-election lame-duck session. However, for this scenario to become reality, the Democrats would have to suffer substantial losses in the upcoming midterm elections.
Legislation can move quickly through unanimous consent agreements, which the crypto bill lacked. According to Slaughter, at least ten senators were unwilling to grant the necessary time agreement due to persistent disagreements.
Advancing the bill through cloture would have been too time-consuming.
He also pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece criticizing the Clarity Act as well as last-minute opposition from Republican senators, including Senator Josh Hawley, as the key factors that delayed the passage.
The industry still has substantial work to do to win over policymakers and the elite media, the former SEC adviser claims.
“Policy in DC is still downstream of elite media, and a LOT of conservative opinion leaders still voice doubts about crypto,” Slaughter said.
