Seven Democratic senators said on Sept. 16 that they remain committed to bipartisan negotiations on the CLARITY Act, despite a failed procedural vote in the Senate a day earlier.
The cloture vote on H.R. 3633 took place on Sept. 15 at 2:19 p.m. and ended 49 votes in favor and 50 against, falling short of the three-fifths threshold required to advance the bill. The legislation would establish federal rules for digital commodities through the SEC and CFTC, and includes provisions involving the Federal Reserve and central bank digital currency.
The statement was signed by Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto and Raphael Warnock. The senators cited consumer protection, penalties for bad actors, regulatory certainty and ethics provisions covering elected officials as key goals. Notably, all seven voted against the Sept. 15 procedural motion, but they described the outcome as a setback rather than the end and pledged to continue bipartisan work.
Analysts are already assessing what comes next. StoneX said the legislation is unlikely to pass during the current Congress. Bernstein expects the SEC and CFTC to pursue rulemaking on native crypto token classifications, DeFi protections, self-custody infrastructure and equity tokenization. JPMorgan analysts said agency rules could establish guardrails while Congress considers legislation, but those rules would be less durable than statutes. Eleanor Terrett reported that efforts to restart talks are underway, with sources saying lawmakers are gauging interest in returning to negotiations.
