Why Sherrod Brown May Not Be Crypto’s Biggest Problem in the Senate

So, it seems Elizabeth Warren is poised to head up the Senate Banking Committee. Woohoo! and Sherrod Brown may become chair of the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over digital assets and prediction markets. The Block reported that if so, Brown would likely not introduce any crypto legislation, but I'm sure there are other things that those two could, um, you know, think up to do against the crypto industry. Uh, I'm curious to hear what impact you think those two in particular and any other sort of virulently anti-crypto uh congress people, um, you know, what you think they could do.

So, I want to give an outside of consensus answer. I don't think Sherrod Brown does that much. People have not been focused on the fact that he didn't win a six-year term in the Senate. He won a two-year term in the Senate. This was the old J. D. Vance term that he gave up to become Vice President. Part of why I think Senator Brown, former, future Senator Brown wants to go to Ag is he understands his number one job is to win re-election in 2028. And that's going to be hard. So, I went to the data. Sherrod Brown won election this year by about four points. He won by less than Annie Andrews did in South Carolina. And he only won by that despite a democratic plus 13 year. He underperformed. Why he underperformed, I think is mostly because Ohio is a really unfavorable state for Democrats. But it was also true for the governor who won Amy Acton. It's going to be an uphill battle for him to win. I think he was going to focus primarily on being a senator for Ohio rather than focusing on crypto Ag. That said, I don't expect him to do any favors for crypto. Fair Shake spent very heavily against him. He probably does join some more in letters. He probably makes it hard for that house bill if it passes to pass the Senate. Senator Warren, she has a very large agenda, but it's not just crypto. This morning it was reported that there's this 181-page dossier, was by the Washington Sun, by Jeff Stein, great reporter, that lists all the executives and companies that are targets potentially of a new democratic oversight effort. Senator Warren has apparently read it and sees it with some amount of approval. I am anticipating a flurry of letters and hearings aimed at many people in the sports, uh, industry, in prediction markets, in Wall Street, in areas around manufacturing, in agriculture, in meat packing, but also in AI and crypto. And that's going to be quite intense.

What that ends up amounting to is less clear. If you read the reporting, the theory is you will have executives called up with data and screamed at and they will literally per the report, choose to resign under pressure or give money back to the American people. I think this is a misread of both the mandate they have and unlikely to work. And I say that as someone who used to do oversight in the house many moons ago. But I think it'll happen and I think it'll be quite intense. What I am watching in particular though is who is down Das? The nature of modern American congressional committees is that the chair is powerful, but they live and die at the sufferance of their own members down Das. In clarity, what you saw again and again was a lot of senators saying they worked with the Republicans because Senator Warren would not find a way to get to a bill. I don't know what happens if you have the senator sending out all these letters and having these hearings and you have a bunch of freshmen on banking because a consistent rule of the last three to four years is every freshman who joins banking leaves it as fast as they can. That was Jon Ossoff, that was John Fetterman, that was Adam Schiff. Why? Because it's a very contentious committee these days. So, you have this immovable object of Senator Warren wanting to do a very fierce oversight effort, in part to lay the groundwork for what 2028 is like for Democrats, and all these freshmen who do not want to be part of a holy war against all of corporate America. Would they support targeted oversight? I'm sure they would. In particular, there's a lot of talk about investigating companies that took money for tariffs and didn't actually pass them on to consumers, which for good or for ill, that's no crypto companies. But that's what's going on.

Yeah, and I I I think that's spot on. I mean, I I also agree with Justin's take that I think Brown is going to be laser focused on re-election. I don't think he's going to be a problem. I think Warren is a zealot about this and we know that and that's not going to change. Um but what what has changed is the composition of the Democratic majority in the Senate. And I think the fact that we have a presidential race in two years. and I don't think that most of the down-dais Democrats are going to want to spend time, uh, you know, carrying Elizabeth Warren's water that was politically toxic in 24. I don't think they want to push corporations, tech, crypto, AI, just flat out, uh, into Republican's arms, um, heading into a presidential. I think targeted oversight is going to happen, the stuff Justin said, but I also think especially in the crypto world, it's going to be focused around the Trump family and the Trump family, you know, crypto, uh, actions, whether that's the meme coins, whether that's World Liberty. Um, I think there's going to be a lot of focus around that and around the crypto players that were involved in that. And that gives some opportunity to, uh, you know, other crypto companies and and businesses to work with the the rest of the Democratic majority to find more productive solutions while the oversight, uh, spotlight is on, you know, the Trump family crypto businesses.

You just heard a piece of Unchained. I'm host, Laura Shin, and the full conversation is in the description below. We go live every Monday and Thursday. Subscribe so you never miss it.