Senate Republicans Circulate Updated CLARITY Act Text Ahead of Key Procedural Vote

Sen. Cynthia Lummis on Thursday released updated legislative text for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, just five days before the Senate is set to vote on whether to take up the measure. The revision arrives without public commitments from the Democrats whose votes will determine whether the bill advances. According to Senate Democratic leadership's floor schedule, cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 will ripen Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 2:15 p.m. and requires 60 votes. Republicans hold 53 seats, while Democrats have 45 and there are two independents who caucus with them. If all Republicans vote to proceed, the motion still needs seven Democrats. Lummis outlined three limited updates in the new text. First, trading protocols that are not decentralized would be required to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act. That would align their treatment with Section 10301's approach on the securities side, where the Securities and Exchange Commission must detail how operators meet existing intermediary requirements. Second, the decentralized finance title would be narrowed to cover only spot and cash digital commodity transactions. Third, the revision clarifies which digital asset activities credit unions may conduct. "We have incorporated more than 114 separate provisions at my Democrat colleagues' request, and as a result, this bill is a strong bipartisan product," Lummis said. The new language is posted on Lummis's website as an amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3633, the House-passed bill. The document is organized into four divisions: the Banking Committee's ten titles; the Agriculture Committee's digital commodity intermediary titles; an ethics division; and an effective date. Lummis previously released a merged draft on July 22, alongside Banking Chairman Tim Scott and Agriculture Chairman John Boozman. The release lists BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab and SoFi as supporters, along with four law enforcement organizations: the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and the Major County Sheriffs of America. Public materials from some of those groups point to lingering objections. The most recent CLARITY Act item posted on the National Sheriffs' Association site is a July 31 letter signed by its president, Sheriff Troy Wellman, urging senators not to vote on the bill "as written." The letter says that while the association supports a responsible regulatory framework for digital assets, "significant law enforcement and public safety risks" must be addressed before a Senate vote, citing exemptions for decentralized finance participants from anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements. The Major County Sheriffs of America's legislation page lists only a May 13 concerns letter on the same bill. Neither group has posted a statement on the September text. Democratic positions also appear unchanged since the July draft. Seven Democratic senators issued a joint statement when the July text was released, and none of their offices has published an update on the September version. "The Republican-proposed text of the CLARITY Act as it currently stands falls short," said Sens. Mark Warner, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper and Raphael Warnock in a statement posted on Warner's site. They said provisions covering ethics for elected officials, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity must be strengthened, adding they have been working with Republicans for the past year. The ethics title was specifically cited by the group and is not among the three changes in the September text. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren continues to oppose the bill outright. In her statement on the July draft, she said the ethics section leaves enforcement to the Attorney General, blocks state attorneys general from bringing actions, and sunsets once the president leaves office. "Donald Trump raked in more than $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency ventures, and this bill does nothing to prevent him from vacuuming up his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits," Warren said, arguing the legislation should be dead on arrival. Market pricing suggests limited expectations for enactment. Polymarket on Friday put the odds of the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026 at 18%, on $15.1 million of cumulative volume since the market opened in January. Traders had shifted passage odds into 2027 in early August, after Majority Leader John Thune filed for cloture on Aug. 8 and allowed a first filing to lapse. A separate market on which senators will vote for the bill prices Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand at 39% as the most likely "yes" vote among the names listed; the New York Democrat co-wrote the Responsible Financial Innovation Act with Lummis in 2022. Another market puts the odds of more than 50 senators voting for the bill at 36%. In crypto markets, Bitcoin was last at $77,636, up 1.1% over 24 hours and down 4.1% over seven days, with a 24-hour range of $76,393 to $78,035, according to CoinGecko. Tuesday's vote will determine only whether the Senate takes up the bill. If the motion succeeds, the legislation moves into debate and an amendment process Democrats have said they want to use to target the ethics, illicit finance and consumer protection titles. Any Senate-passed version would return to the House because the Senate text is a substitute for the measure the House sent over. The House passed H.R. 3633 by 294–134 in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee approved its version 15–9 in May and reported the bill with a strike-and-insert amendment on June 1.