Where the CLARITY Act stands right now

Three gates, one cleared and a half

A bill becomes law by passing both chambers in identical form. The CLARITY Act has cleared one chamber and one committee of the second. That sounds close. It is not, because the hard part in the Senate has never been the committee.

The House vote on July 17 2025 was 294-134. Breaking that down matters. 216 Republicans and 78 Democrats voted yes, four Republicans did not vote, and no Republican who voted opposed it. That is the ceiling on bipartisan support, reached before the text started carrying a fight about the current administration.

The Senate Banking Committee vote on May 14 2026 was 15-9. Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joined all 13 Republicans, and both said a committee vote did not commit them on the floor. Both later signed the July 22 letter saying the bill falls short.

What being on the calendar does and does not mean

Senator Scott reported the bill on June 1 2026 with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, and it became Calendar No. 423. Calendar placement makes a bill eligible for floor consideration. It schedules nothing.

The step that matters is a cloture motion, which is how the majority leader forces a vote on proceeding. None has been filed. Until one is, any count of supportive senators is a poll rather than a whip count. Note also that the 60-vote number is the cloture threshold under Rule XXII. Final passage itself is a simple majority, so cloture is the real gate.

The second bill nobody talks about

Senate Agriculture has its own vehicle, S. 3755, the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act, which cleared that committee 12-11 on a party-line vote on January 29 2026 and sits at Calendar No. 312. Because the CLARITY framework gives the CFTC the commodity side, and the CFTC answers to the Agriculture committees, the two texts have to be reconciled before either moves.

Agriculture Democrats voted no on the same ethics grounds now stalling the Banking bill. So this is not two obstacles. It is one obstacle showing up in two committees.

The July 2026 text

The sequence ran tighter than most coverage suggests. Sponsors and the White House announced negotiated ethics language on Tuesday July 21. The 616-page merged text incorporating it landed on July 22. Seven Democratic senators said the same day that it falls short on ethics for elected officials, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity.

So the industry had roughly one day between the deal and the rejection. A lot of reporting places both events on July 24, which is a publication date rather than an event date.

Lummis put the stakes plainly. The coming weeks, she said, are likely the last real chance we will have for years to get this right.