Senate Republicans Post Revised CLARITY Act Text Five Days Before Cloture Vote

Senator Cynthia Lummis released a revised text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on Thursday, five days before the Senate votes on whether to take the bill up, and without public backing from the Democrats whose votes decide the outcome.

Cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 ripens Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 2:15 p.m. and needs 60 votes, according to the Senate Democratic leadership's floor schedule. Republicans hold 53 seats against 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with them, per the Senate's party division tally. If every Republican votes to proceed, seven Democrats carry the motion. The Defiant reported that seven-Democrat math when the bill reached the floor calendar.

Three Changes To The Text

The changes Lummis listed are narrow. Trading protocols that are not decentralized must register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, mirroring the treatment Section 10301 already gives them on the securities side, where the Securities and Exchange Commission must spell out how operators meet existing intermediary requirements. The decentralized finance title now applies only to spot and cash digital commodity transactions. The third change 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 in the release.

The text is posted on Lummis's site as an amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3633, the bill the House passed. It runs four divisions: the Banking Committee's ten titles, the Agriculture Committee's digital commodity intermediary titles, an ethics division and an effective date.

Lummis released the previous version on July 22, merging the Banking and Agriculture committees' work with Banking Chairman Tim Scott and Agriculture Chairman John Boozman.

Sheriffs On Both Lists

The release names BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab and SoFi as supporters, along with four law enforcement groups: 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.

The most recent CLARITY Act document on the National Sheriffs' Association's own site is a July 31 letter to the Senate signed by its president, Sheriff Troy Wellman, that asks senators not to vote on the bill as written. "While NSA supports establishing a responsible regulatory framework for the digital-asset marketplace, the legislation's significant law enforcement and public safety risks must be addressed before the Senate votes," it says, citing exemptions for decentralized finance participants from anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements. The only digital asset item on the Major County Sheriffs of America's legislation page is a May 13 concerns letter on the same bill.

Neither group has posted a statement on the September text.

Democrats Have Not Moved

Seven Democrats put out a joint statement the day the July text landed, and none of their offices has posted anything on the September version.

"The Republican-proposed text of the CLARITY Act as it currently stands falls short. Key provisions including those addressing ethics for elected officials, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity must be strengthened. We have been working in good faith with our Republican colleagues for the past year and will continue doing so to get this over the finish line," said Senators Mark Warner, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper and Raphael Warnock in a statement posted on Warner's site.

The ethics title is one of the areas they named. It is not among the three changes in the September text.

Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren opposes the bill outright. In her statement on the July text, she said the ethics title leaves enforcement with the Attorney General, bars 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, adding that the bill should be dead on arrival.

Traders Price One In Five

Polymarket put the odds of the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026 at 18% on Friday, on $15.1 million of cumulative volume since the market opened in January. Traders had pushed passage odds into 2027 in early August, when Majority Leader John Thune let a first cloture filing pass. He filed on Aug. 8.

A companion market on which senators will vote for the bill prices Kirsten Gillibrand at 39%, the highest name on the list. The New York Democrat co-wrote the Responsible Financial Innovation Act with Lummis in 2022. A third market puts the odds of more than 50 senators voting for the bill at 36%.

Bitcoin traded at $77,636, up 1.1% over 24 hours and down 4.1% over seven days, in a 24-hour range of $76,393 to $78,035, according to CoinGecko.

The House Still Waits

Tuesday's vote decides whether the Senate takes the bill up at all. Clearing it opens debate and an amendment process Democrats have said they want to use on the ethics, illicit finance and consumer protection titles.

Whatever the Senate passes goes back to the House, because the text is a substitute for the bill the House sent over. The House passed H.R. 3633 by 294-134 in July 2025. Senate Banking approved its version 15-9 in May and reported the bill with the strike-and-insert amendment on June 1.