CLARITY Act pulled from Monday Senate schedule

The Senate removed the CLARITY Act from Monday’s public floor schedule, giving leaders 72 hours to either file an ordinary cloture petition by Wednesday for a possible Friday cloture vote on the motion to proceed, or to pursue a bipartisan petition or unanimous-consent agreement before the Senate breaks for an Aug. 10 state work period.

Monday’s floor notice lists only a cloture vote on H.R. 6500, a continuing-resolution vehicle, and the chamber’s cloture ledger shows no filing for H.R. 3633, the House-passed CLARITY Act, or for the related Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. The absence of a listed floor path leaves the bill without a publicly posted route to consideration this week.

Under Senate Rule XXII, an ordinary cloture petition requires 16 senators’ signatures. If such a petition is filed while the Senate is in session on Wednesday, it could produce a cloture vote on the motion to proceed as soon as Friday. That vote would decide whether to end debate on beginning consideration of the bill, not whether the CLARITY Act itself will pass. If cloture is invoked on the motion to proceed, the Senate may use up to 30 hours of additional debate before voting to go to consideration. The bill would still face consideration, possible amendment, and likely another cloture threshold for final passage. A cloture motion generally needs three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn, normally 60 votes when the Senate is at full membership.

Leaders can move faster through a special bipartisan petition or unanimous-consent agreement. A special bipartisan petition must be signed by the two party leaders plus seven senators not aligned with the majority and seven not aligned with the minority to reach 16 signers; that petition triggers a cloture question one hour after the Senate meets on the next calendar day. If cloture is invoked under that route, the Senate may vote to proceed without further debate. A unanimous-consent request can compress or eliminate formal timing, but any single senator may object and block that path.

The legislative vehicle for any floor action remains unclear. H.R. 3633 is the House-passed CLARITY Act, and Senator Cynthia Lummis circulated a merged Banking-Agriculture text on July 22. The current floor notice does not state whether that updated text would move as H.R. 3633, as an amendment on the floor, or attached to another bill. The choice of vehicle will determine specific timing and which votes are required before the chamber adjourns for the weeklong state work period beginning Aug. 10.

Support for the revised text is unsettled. Seven Democratic negotiators — Catherine Cortez Masto, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper, Mark Warner and Raphael Warnock — described the draft as falling short while remaining open to further negotiations. Senator Elizabeth Warren registered opposition to the updated text. Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated a procedural vote before the recess would occur only if enough Democrats backed moving forward.

The next clear signals will be a new filing or a leadership notice that identifies the vehicle and the procedural path: an ordinary cloture filing by Wednesday for a possible Friday cloture vote, assembly of a bipartisan petition, or agreement on unanimous consent. Any of those actions would change the immediate timetable for the CLARITY Act on the Senate floor.