Challenges Remain, Victories Claimed: Advocacy Year Ends, But the Work Goes On

2023 ended with a record number of legislative alerts from Stateside Associates – 934. That represents 298 bills. The only state that did not introduce any legislation potentially impacting our industry is Vermont. States with 10 or more bills introduced are led by New York with 46 bills introduced. New Jersey is a very distant second at 19. Texas completes the top trio with 17 bills. What is unique this year is that 190 of those 298 bills are related to cryptocurrency.

Summing up activity for the most important issues:

• 23 states introduced measures to require acceptance of cash for in-person retail transactions – nearly half of the country.  ATMIA was very pleased that three states did pass such legislation – Oregon, Montana, and Tennessee.
• Very onerous and burdensome licensing/registration schemes were proposed in Texas and Virginia.  Texas was a re-hash of a previous attempt.  After failing the first time, the Texas Attorney General and Department of Licensing and Regulation both reached out to David Tente earlier this year to discuss the proposed legislation.  It appears that the measure failed to receive any further support.  The Virginia proposal had some similarities and faced many obstacles.
• Three states introduced ATM crime bills this year.  Two of the three succeeded in passing their bills – Missouri and Louisiana.  Texas and Kansas passed similar measures in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
• A number of pre-filed bills (to be introduced in the 2024 session) have also been received for cashless bans and crypto regulations.  Another for South Carolina proposes to limit bank convenience fees to $1.50.