Clarity Act Faces Crucial Vote Next Week Amid Republican Push

Article by Mathew Di Salvo, Bitcoin Magazine

Translated by AididiaoJP, Foreisght News

Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, known for her crypto advocacy, has turned her fire again on the Democrats, targeting the long-delayed Crypto Market Structure Act: the Clarity Act.

She didn't rule it out completely. The bill could still pass, but only if the Democrats make further concessions.

On Tuesday, Lummis responded to a Semafor article on X. The article cited multiple Republican senators who judged that the bill is unlikely to pass when the Senate reconvenes next week. Lawmakers had originally hoped to cast a decisive vote before the five-week summer recess in August, but the vote has been delayed. The Senate is now scheduled to hold a procedural cloture vote on the Clarity Act next week; only if this vote succeeds will the bill have a chance to proceed to open debate—if it fails, the legislative timeline is effectively dead.

Bitcoin Magazine paraphrased Loomis’s more emphatic statement: If it fails again next week, “we won’t have another realistic chance before the end of this decade.”

The legislative calendar is set—don’t expect a second round this session. With midterm elections approaching, attention will shift to the campaign trail. Bills like this one, which are complex, lengthy, and closely watched by both banks and the crypto industry, risk being stalled in committees and procedural delays for years if this window is missed.

She wrote in the post: “If this bill fails, it won’t be due to ethical concerns, but because Democrats failed to join Republicans in embracing a bipartisan bill that protects consumers, solidifies U.S. leadership in digital assets, and empowers law enforcement to combat illicit finance.”

She said the Democrats are still "demanding changes," and these changes could "strangle the crypto industry" for future regulators.

If these differences can be bridged, I am confident we can pass Clarity—but it will require further compromise from the Democrats, not the White House.

This isn’t the first time she’s blamed the other side. Last summer, she said: “If Clarity dies, it’s the Democrats who killed it.” She and other pro-crypto lawmakers have consistently named those they believe are deliberately stalling the bill. At the end of July, she was even more direct on a podcast: “Since Labor Day last year, we’ve been working with the Democrats to revise the draft—it grew from about 300 pages to nearly 700, with most of the additions coming from Democratic demands. Constant revisions and last-minute insertions? It’s absurd. I’m tired of being played.”

In early August, she told Fox Business that she had stayed up all night negotiating with Democrats, and that the president had accepted ethics provisions “no president in history has ever agreed to,” yet the Democrats wanted more. “We will vote. If it dies, it will be because the Democrats killed it. For eleven years, I’ve given them every regulation they could ask for.” Her “eleven years” reflects her own sense of time; the intense back-and-forth with Democrats actually took place over the past eleven months.

What the Clarity Act aims to do may sound like regulatory technicalities, but its implementation will determine whether U.S. crypto companies can keep their headquarters in the country. It defines boundaries for digital assets: which qualify as securities, falling under the SEC; which are commodities, under the CFTC; and stablecoins as a separate category. The House passed it last July. The Senate has been stalled for a year—not because there’s no discussion, but because lawmakers can’t agree on how to divide the two key pieces.

The first issue is stablecoin yield. Bank lobbying groups do not want crypto companies to pay interest or similar returns on stablecoin balances, fearing that deposits could be drained. Crypto companies view this as a core product feature: if users deposit cash into on-chain dollars, why shouldn’t they earn a return? The two sides have been at odds for a long time over whether stablecoin payments can generate returns for customers, making this one of the biggest reasons for delays this year.

The second issue is ethics. Since July, a new draft has been circulating, prohibiting government officials from promoting cryptocurrencies or profiting from them. Democrats have consistently highlighted the Trump family’s crypto dealings, arguing that no industry legislation should be passed without first explicitly addressing conflicts of interest. Republicans counter that ethical provisions have already been included—even requiring officials to sell their digital assets or place them in blind trusts; further changes would not prevent conflicts of interest but instead embed a tool in the law that future regulators could use to strangle the industry.

Despite the ethical revisions, a group of Democrats still says the draft is insufficient and calls for amendments. There is also internal political calculation within the party: while campaigning against Trump by highlighting his crypto-related profits, they are simultaneously sitting down to craft regulations for the crypto industry, creating a narrative conflict. Some reports suggest that certain Democrats fear reaching clarity on the issue could weaken their ability to attack Trump over conflicts of interest.

The White House is pushing for passage. In August, Donald Trump said that for the U.S. to remain the undisputed leader in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, it must pass this “very, very strong legislation.” He wants the U.S. to maintain its position as the global hub for digital assets, rather than driving companies, talent, and listings to places like Singapore, Switzerland, or other jurisdictions with clearer regulations. Lummis draws a clear line: the issue isn’t the White House holding back—it’s the Democrats holding back.

The Republican colleagues in Semaphor leaking that the bill is doomed and Loomis publicly claiming it can still pass are not contradictory. One is preparing for failure, while the other is escalating pressure onto the opposing side at the negotiating table. The number of votes required for cloture is more stringent than a simple majority. Without sufficient Democratic support, Republicans cannot muster enough votes on their own.

The cost of Clarity’s delay is already concrete for the industry: companies don’t know whether their issued tokens will later be classified as securities, stablecoin products dare not include yield terms in user agreements, and exchanges and custodians are caught switching between two conflicting regulatory frameworks. Each delay in the bill fuels another wave of migration to obtain licenses overseas. Loomis raising the decade-long window suggests the next political alignment won’t come soon.

If the Democratic Party insists on further changes, they cite public reasons: consumer protection, preventing officials from profiting from cryptocurrencies, and ensuring enforcement has teeth. Loomis acknowledges that these issues were included in the bipartisan text, but he rejects granting regulators additional discretionary power that could "kill the industry."

The schedule is already extremely tight. If it doesn’t pass before the recess, next week’s procedural vote is the next hurdle. Whether the door opens or not won’t depend on how many more principle statements are issued, but on whether enough Democrats are willing to sign on to the current text. Loomis has laid out the contingency plan clearly: failure won’t be due to ethics discussions falling short, but because the other side hasn’t gotten on board.