The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is set to vote on the nomination of Brian Quintenz to chair of the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) — the body that regulates prediction markets like Kalshi — on Monday.
Per an announcement on the committee site, the vote will take place July 21, in conjunction with a 5:30 p.m. floor vote on cloture for the nomination of a new DEA administrator. Committee meetings held in conjunction with a floor vote usually start just before the vote, pause for senators to get to the floor and then resume shortly after voting is complete.
Three other nominations to other bodies will also be considered during the meeting, with Quintenz listed last, suggesting his vote may occur after the floor vote.
Quintenz was nominated to the role of CFTC chair by President Donald Trump in February. In the position, he would have the ability to determine that sports event contracts offered and self-certified by Kalshi are contrary to the public interest and ban them, or to continue to allow the contracts to be offered.
Quintenz could be only commissioner for a while
Last month, Quintenz was questioned by members of the committee in a hearing, and outlined his permissive stance towards prediction markets and sports event contracts, suggesting he has no intention of banning them.
“I believe the law is very clear about the purpose of derivative contracts, and about events that have financial or economic consequences qualifying as commodities,” he said in response to questions from Sen. Adam Schiff at the hearing.
During the hearing, Quintenz also said that the CFTC “would want to ensure that it’s defending the Commodity Exchange Act,” suggesting that if a court finds sports event contracts unlawful, the CFTC could appeal the ruling.
He also responded to tribal concerns about sports event contracts by arguing that Native American tribes are free to get CFTC approval and offer their own versions of these markets.
Quintenz will, at least at first, have a particularly large degree of control over the CFTC as he may be the regulator’s only commissioner when he joins. The CFTC typically has five commissioners, but Acting Chair Caroline Pham is set to step down once Quintenz arrives, Summer Mersinger and Christy Goldsmith Romero both left their roles as commissioners at the end of May, and Kristin Johnson will leave “later this year.” The last full-time chair, Rostin Behnam, left the regulator in February.
Quintenz is currently a shareholder and board member of Kalshi. In an ethics letter published in May, he said would recuse himself for one year for matters regarding Kalshi should he get the CFTC position.
The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee has 23 members — 13 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
Should Quintenz’s nomination clear the committee, the next stop will be a vote before the full Senate.
