Senator calls CLARITY ethics draft "a piece of shit" — counterproposal incoming 💩

Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona said he will work with Republican colleagues to draft a counterproposal to the ethics provisions released this week as part of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, calling the Republican draft "not a serious effort." Gallego's remarks, reported by Politico on Thursday, signal that negotiations over the bill's ethics package remain far from settled even after Senate Republicans unveiled the proposed text on Wednesday.

Gallego's bluntest criticism came in a direct quote to Politico: "Whatever piece of shit they sent back to us, that was not a serious effort." He added, "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." Democrats have argued the ethics language falls short of what is needed to address concerns about conflicts of interest involving digital assets.

The Republican draft includes provisions that would bar all US federal officials — including US President Donald Trump — from issuing or sponsoring any digital asset. Senate Republicans have pushed back against criticism of the language, with Senator Bernie Moreno describing the draft as containing "the most powerful ethics language in US history." The dispute highlights a wider fight over how the legislation will handle ethics rules for federal officeholders, an area that has complicated bipartisan talks on digital asset market structure.

Gallego said he plans to collaborate with Senator Thom Tillis and other Republicans on an alternative package. "We are still in this fight," Gallego told Politico. "We are going to send back language." The CLARITY Act, which aims to define regulatory jurisdiction over digital asset markets, continues to move through a negotiation process in which ethics provisions have emerged as a central sticking point.