Senate Republicans have presented what they call their final CLARITY Act proposal and are pressuring Democrats ahead of a procedural vote scheduled for Sept. 15.
The new 635-page proposal would require 60 votes to open debate, meaning Republicans would require the support of all 53 Republican senators and at least seven Democratic caucus members to open debate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer convened Democrats on Sunday evening to discuss the text since its release; as of Sept. 14, Democratic leaders had not signaled how their caucus would vote.
Sens. Cynthia Lummis, Tim Scott and John Boozman said they had accepted 126 substantive changes Democrats requested to the original proposal after more than a year of negotiations.
Ethics provisions remain the centerpiece of the controversy, with Democrats advancing a range of bans on elected officials and their families profiting from digital assets while shaping federal policy. Republican sponsors say President Donald Trump accepted provisions based on substantially all of a proposal developed by Sens.
Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego would require federally elected officials and federal judges and their spouses to divest or place in a blind trust large cryptocurrency holdings.
Read More: The CLARITY Act Changed Again: New Crypto Bill Impacts DeFi
The revised regulatory framework, which also gives state attorneys general a role in enforcement, would take care of concerns among Democrats about relying too heavily on federal enforcement, but that doesn’t guarantee their support for the rest of the bill, particularly as scrutiny is ramping up for crypto firms linked to Trump.
Another meaningful change is to stablecoins, allowing the Treasury secretary to be prepared for deposit flight from payment stablecoins. The sponsors have described the mechanism as a circuit breaker to protect community banks. Banking groups say stablecoin rewards could compete with deposits. Crypto industry representatives point to chilling effects broad limitations could have on legal platform incentives.
Developer protections were reduced. Updated text of the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act shields qualifying software developers from federal money-transmission registration when developers do not control the funds owned by customers. Earlier language, which explicitly included criminal cases (including prosecutions under Section 1960), was deleted.
The overall bill would create registration provisions for digital commodity exchanges, brokers and dealers. It would also give CFTC jurisdiction over covered spot digital commodity markets while leaving SEC jurisdiction over securities and investment contracts intact, and include agriculture provisions limiting affiliates’ trading and preserving specifically state consumer protection laws.
Read More: Coinbase CEO Says CLARITY Act Vote Won’t Stop US Crypto Rules From Coming
However, the CLARITY Act will not clear a vote on Tuesday, and a cloture motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 was scheduled for a vote at 2:15 p.m. Eastern by Senate Majority Leader John Thune. If 60 senators support the motion, sponsors would offer the 635-page bill as a substitute amendment, which could be debated and amended before further procedural and final votes.
