Congressman Davidson to Submit Legislation to Fire SEC Chair
- United States Representative Warren Davidson announced that he will file legislation in Congress to fire the Chairman of the US SEC, Gary Gensler.
- Davidson said that his legislation will aim to replace the role with an Executive Director that reports to the Board, where the actual authority will reside.
- Former Chairs of the SEC are ineligible,” added Davidson in a Twitter post.
- This comes after Gensler’s agency announced that it will be revisiting the proposed redefinition of an “exchange” under the regulator’s rules.
The collapse and bankruptcies of multiple crypto companies in the United States, coupled with the fact that the digital asset space is not efficiently regulated, have brought increased scrutiny against the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler. According to a recent revelation, United States Representative Warren Davidson, will soon file legislation in Congress for the removal of Gensler from his position of power.
Davidson is known for his crypto-friendly approach to the regulation of digital assets, and in response to a Twitter post from the Chief Legal Officer of crypto exchange Coinbase, Paul Grewal, the Congressman, who has been the US representative for Ohio’s 8th congressional district since 2016, said that he will introduce the legislation to fire Gensler after his agency failed to protect investors from the collapse of crypto companies in 2022.
“To correct a long series of abuses, I am introducing legislation that removes the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and replaces the role with an Executive Director that reports to the Board (where authority resides). Former Chairs of the SEC are ineligible,” said Davidson in a Twitter post.
Gewal noted in his Twitter post that SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce pointed out rightly in “60-something words,” an issue that many crypto firms have faced in the recent period.
She stated that the SEC asks “entrepreneurs trying to do new things in our markets to come in and register,” but when they are unable to do so, the securities regulator “dismisses the possibility of making practical adjustments to our registration framework to help entrepreneurs register, and instead rewards their good faith with an enforcement action.”
“I believe this truly alarming statement, coming from a Commissioner of the SEC, should give pause to all judges who hear cases brought by the SEC against crypto industry players who attempted in good faith to engage with the SEC staff—to no avail,” said James ‘MetaLawMan’ Murphy, a Web3 and blockchain advocate and advisor.
This upcoming action against the SEC Chair comes after Gensler’s agency announced that it will be revisiting the proposed redefinition of “exchange” under the regulator’s rules. Furthermore, the crypto community has speculated that this could include crypto market participants in decentralized finance, or DeFi.
Gensler stated on April 14 that the proposed amendments to the definition of the word “exchange” could benefit investors and markets by bringing brokers under additional regulatory scrutiny as well as modernizing the rules that define an exchange. Gensler further added that the definition of an exchange should be a platform that “brings together buyers and sellers of securities through structured methods to negotiate a trade” and explicitly include DeFi.
“This would account for the evolving nature and electronification of trading platforms in the last 25 years,” Gensler added, noting that there is an increased need for regulation of crypto exchanges and service providers.
As reported earlier by BitcoinWisdom, the SEC Chair warned crypto platforms and asked them to take note of crypto exchange Kraken’s decision to stop offering its staking service in the US and pay a $30 million penalty. He asked exchanges to fill out the forms on the regulator’s websites and follow the procedure to register themselves to operate in the region.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
