Washington, DC– Congressman Jim Himes (CT-04) today released the following statement regarding the passage of the GENIUS Act and the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025:
“Today I voted to support the GENIUS Act, which improves on the status quo by establishing market regulations for stablecoins. It is far from a perfect bill, but it is an important step towards protecting consumers and bolstering our national security.
“For those same reasons, I had hoped to support CLARITY Act. However, I cannot in good faith vote to advance a bill that allows Donald Trump to continue grifting off the American people through cryptocurrency schemes. It is common sense that nobody involved in the regulation of digital assets should be able to profit off them, particularly a president who has flagrantly ignored the Constitution and raked in hundreds of millions of dollars by using his official capacity to promote a personal meme coin. I appreciate my Republican colleagues who engaged in good faith negotiations to better the CLARITY Act, but their refusal to include language to eliminate this obvious conflict of interest forced my no vote today.”
Last month, Congressman Himes introduced an amendment to the CLARITY Act that would have prohibited federal elected officials from issuing a digital asset or holding a financial interest in an issuer of a digital asset. These restrictions would have applied to the President, Vice President, Senate-confirmed members of the executive branch, Members of Congress, and the spouses and children of these individuals. All Republican Members of the Financial Services Committee voted to defeat the amendment.