Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona sharply criticized the ethics provisions in the Senate Republican draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, telling Politico on Thursday that the proposal was "not a serious effort" and pledging to develop a counterproposal with GOP colleagues.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans released the proposed text for the CLARITY Act, a major cryptocurrency market structure bill aimed at establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States. The draft includes ethics language that would bar all US federal officials — including President Donald Trump — from issuing or sponsoring any digital asset.

Democrats quickly argued that the ethics provisions did not go far enough, underscoring how ethics restrictions have become central to whether the broader market structure package can maintain bipartisan support.

"Whatever piece of shit they sent back to us, that was not a serious effort," Senator Gallego told Politico on Thursday.

"I can't imagine that that's a serious effort — after all the work that we've done with our Republican colleagues, that they would take the months and months of work and somehow interpret that and turn around and think what they offered was even remotely close," Gallego added.

Senate Republicans have pushed back against the assertion that the ethics provisions are inadequate. Senator Bernie Moreno described the draft as containing "the most powerful ethics language in US history."

Gallego said he would collaborate with Senator Thom Tillis and other Republicans to craft a counterproposal.

"We are still in this fight," Gallego told Politico. "We are going to send back language."

The CLARITY Act is part of a broader legislative effort in Congress to bring clarity to the regulation of digital assets, establishing jurisdictional boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Those boundaries are important because they would help determine which federal regulator oversees different parts of the digital asset market. The bill has been the subject of months of bipartisan negotiations, with ethics provisions emerging as a key point of contention between the two parties.

Source: CryptoNews.net