Maxine Waters is the Democratic Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee. This Committee has been in the headlines a lot in the last few months because of the crypto legislation that they have been pushing through with bipartisan support. However, while other Democratic Members on the Committee are signing onto these bills and supporting them through the Committee Ranking Member Waters has continued to come out and bash these bills.
Today the House Financial Services Committee is holding another Markup that contains more crypto bills and included in this are two anti-CBDC bills one from the Democratic side and the other from the Republican side. What was wild and stuck out to me were her comments before the markup saying that the Republican Party has taken an anti-innovative approach with their bill H.R. 5403 which forbids the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC to either individuals or to banks who would then issue them to individuals.
Looking at how Ranking Member Waters has approached the whole thing though leads one to question who is the one that really is against innovation. Prior to this year, Ranking Member Waters was actually the Chairwoman of the Committee meaning she set the schedule, decided what bill would be addressed, and pushed through the chosen legislation. Under her leadership, though the Committee never passed or addressed cryptocurrency even while the cryptocurrency was collapsing she with her majority could not get anything through.
Especially until the dam broke in July of this year for over a year and a half the news was always about negotiations there was never anything actually introduced. While negotiations and working on a bill are great in the House legislation cannot just sit around for a year and a half to two years since Members are elected every two years. Due to the lack of clarity and regulation, it can be argued that this climate itself was anti-innovation and that people with crypto/blockchain ideas or companies moved abroad.
The drafts that came out over the crypto space that were led by her were extremely extremely invasive and in some cases were more stringent than what a bank faces. When those drafts leaked I remember everyone from across the space and political spectrum going this is awful legislation. One of if not the biggest things she is a proponent of is the SEC and Chair Gary Gensler. Her idea was that the SEC needed more power more oversight powers and that Gensler and the SEC were doing a great job.
Crypto has been in the general public eye for years now and during all that time Ranking Member Maxine Waters was either leading the Committee or was the top ranking minority Member. Hearings and negotiations are all fine and dandy but at the end of the day, you have to move and pass legislation. By not doing so especially in a brand new and evolving industry like crypto the uncertainty stifles innovation. Blaming someone else is always easier but it should be kept in people's minds that until 9 almost 10 months ago the person in charge of all of this was Rep. Waters and it was initially her failure to get anything moving while Chairman Patrick McHenry has at least done that.
Even though she has not presented any options of her own publically Ranking Member Waters has also continued complaining and casting doubt on companies and activities in this industry. A prime example of this is PayPal's stablecoin. She did not vote for stablecoin legislation but as soon as deployment commences calls it deeply concerning and says there need to be regulations. While her colleagues have started to work with the Republican majority to get this legislation done Ranking Member Waters does not seem to want to be part of this given her recent comments.
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