French Hill to Lead Powerful Congressional Panel Next Term: Report

Congressman French Hill will be the next chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, Punchbowl News reported Thursday. The Arkansas Republican was named to the role Thursday by the party's Steering Committee, which named the leaders of the various committees ahead of the 119th Congress's start next year. Hill will succeed North Carolina's Patrick McHenry, who will retire after 20 years in Congress and multiple terms leading Republicans on the Financial Services Committee. Hill has chaired the Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion subcommittee over the past few years and cosponsored the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), a market structure bill that much of the cryptocurrency industry hoped would become law. He's also introduced or cosponsored a number of other bills over the years addressing various aspects of the crypto world. McHenry shepherded multiple pieces of crypto legislation through the House of Representatives, including FIT21. Over the past few years, he also worked on stablecoin legislation with his counterpart, California Representative Maxine Waters, though this bill was not ultimately introduced. Waters will again lead Democrats on the House committee after being "unanimously" picked by the caucus, a Wednesday press statement said. In the statement, Waters said she was "honored that the Democratic caucus has once again put their faith in me." "I will continue the fight to improve conditions for working families across the country," she said. "Under my leadership over the past few years, we’ve achieved historic progress to expand housing and address homelessness, support small businesses, and protect people from fraud. But our work is far from finished." Waters said Democrats on the committee would fight any efforts by incoming U.S. President Donald Trump to "raise costs for working families and eliminate hard fought consumer protections."