Brown’s record is fair game. But does his 2024 inaction combined with his total absence from Congress the last two years warrant the crypto super PAC’s largest congressional spend in 2026?
This was never about merit
If the industry’s political spend was actually based on the legislative record, the targets would be obvious. After the 2024 election, industry “luminaries” immediately celebrated how the crypto army had delivered a pro-crypto Congress. Republicans have controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House for the last two years.
The expectation from the unprecedented political spend was a Congress that would finally deliver a market structure bill and stop leaving the industry’s future to the political whims of whoever happened to chair the SEC or CFTC.
As we all know, the Clarity Act failed to overcome cloture.
Republicans will say Clarity needed 60 votes. They couldn’t do it alone without Democrats. That’s true enough. But so did the controversial Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of certain noncitizens charged with crimes, including shoplifting, without a conviction. So did the HALT Fentanyl Act and the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. All overcame cloture; all became law.
Different bills require different coalitions. But controlling the majority (along with the calendar, the agenda, and the committee assignments) means taking responsibility for negotiating one.
