The high vote release by the U.S. House of Representatives once led the industry to believe that the dawn of compliance had arrived, until the Senate shattered all illusions with a cold 49 votes. There are as many as 11 votes apart from crossing the legislative hurdle, facing a deep partisan chasm.

Written by: Sanqing, Foresight News

On September 16, around 14:15 local time on September 15, the U.S. Senate held a roll call vote on the motion to end debate on the Clearer Digital Asset Market Structure Act (CLARITY Act, H.R. 3633), ultimately resulting in a failure with 49 votes in favor and 50 against. This was a full 11 votes short of the 60 votes required to advance the bill.

This is the first time the CLARITY Act has faced a setback in the Senate full assembly since it passed the House in July 2025 with a vote of 294 to 134 and was approved by the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026 with a vote of 15 to 9. The failure of this procedural vote officially marks its legislative process entering the “emergency room” for the year.

During the vote, North Carolina Republican Senator Tillis temporarily changed his supportive vote to a negative one to preserve the right to apply for a motion to reconsider. Delaware Democratic Senator Coons was absent that day.

Warren: This bill is tailor-made for Trump to profit.

Before the vote, long-time Senate opposition leader Massachusetts Democratic Senator Warren delivered a very intense speech against the bill. Her firepower did not merely stay on the technical regulatory differences but pointed directly at the core of power self-enrichment.

Warren stated that the Trump family alone brought in $1.4 billion through its crypto business in 2025, surpassing the fundraising ability of any publicly listed crypto giant in the U.S.

She cited a series of administrative misconduct evidence: the meme coin she promoted before taking office caused retail investors to lose nearly $4 billion; the Department of Justice's crypto enforcement team was disbanded; several campaign donation companies received non-prosecution deals; and several convicted executives received presidential pardons. "This is not a regulatory difference," Warren stated plainly, "but rather a massive beneficiary using the machinery of state to craft rules for their private industry."

Regarding the ethical provisions urgently revised by Republicans on the eve of the vote, Warren criticized each as "get-out-of-jail-free cards": the Attorney General in charge of enforcement, Todd Blanche, had publicly stated he was "Trump's lawyer, not America's lawyer"; the new rules allowed White House regulatory agencies to directly exempt potential violations by issuing legal opinions; Trump's associated holdings, including World Liberty Financial, were granted leniency, and the bill did not close the path for them to continue expanding their business footprint.

She stated, "When the president himself can easily halt investigations against himself, any so-called detailed ethical provisions are merely finely crafted legal backdoors."

Lummis: We have given all we can give.

On the opposing side stands Wyoming Republican Senator Lummis, the chief advocate for the CLARITY Act in the Senate.

In her final speech, Lummis summarized the legislative work of the past year. She noted that the bill text had expanded from the initial 300 pages to 635 pages precisely because the drafting team fully absorbed and transformed 126 proposed amendments from the Democrats. (The latest changes to the bill can be seen in the article "What has changed in the new version of the CLARITY Act, as 'pseudo DeFi' registers with the CFTC?")

"This is a sample of goodwill legislation," she countered, asserting that the opposition were not adhering to principles but obstructing a framework that should transcend party lines.

To prove the bipartisan nature of the bill, Lummis mentioned the record of 78 Democrats in the House who switched sides to support it, and stressed that the White House had completed "the most binding self-restraint in history" on ethical issues, including placing the president, vice president, federal judges, and their families under compliance restrictions, and even making a second concession to grant direct enforcement rights to state attorneys general.

However, the lengthy 635-page compromise ultimately could not withstand the barriers of polarized politics. When some conservatives within the Republican Party voted against due to ideology, and the Democrats fully framed the issue as an "anti-corruption grand jury," any technical fixes would be insufficient to bridge the trust deficit between the two parties.

After receiving only 49 votes, the legislative window is nearly closed.

The final roll call vote painted a clear picture of the power landscape. The 49 votes in favor were all from Republicans, with no Democrats or independent senators crossing over.

Among the 50 votes against, in addition to 46 Democrats and 2 independent senators (Maine's King and Vermont's Sanders), there were also four Republican senators: Collins from Maine, Hawley from Missouri, Moran from Kansas, and Tillis from North Carolina.

Notably, Tillis's last-minute vote change was a typical procedural tactic in the Senate. By standing in the majority side (the opposing camp) at the last moment, he preserved the statutory right for the proponents to later introduce a "motion to reconsider." Immediately after the vote, Tillis officially submitted that motion as a member of the opposing side, technically reserving the possibility of restarting the vote for the bill.

Although procedurally not completely closed off, the time left for the bill has become extremely tight.

The sprint window before the elections (end of September): The Senate is about to enter its election recess in early October, focusing on the midterm elections. If the proponents wish to navigate through this hurdle again, they must persuade at least 11 senators to switch sides within two weeks, which is nearly impossible in the current atmosphere of intense bipartisan strife.

The "lame duck" session after the midterms (November to December): With the new Congress’s seats settled, the Senate will enter a vacuum period before the handover of the old guards. If the two parties can reach a secret compromise on the White House ethical provisions after the frenzy subsides, the bill might still have a last-minute chance of advancement.

If all of the above windows are lost, with the new Congress opening in January 2027, all previous endorsements and agenda accumulations from committees will reset to zero, and the entire legislative marathon will have to start over.