CLARITY Act Faces Senate Cloture Vote on September 15
Ex-Pentagon chief Mark Esper calls crypto clarity a national security issue as Galaxy Research cuts 2026 passage odds to 10% ahead of the September 15 vote.
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The Senate holds a cloture vote on the CLARITY Act, H.R. 3633, on September 15, a test of whether the crypto market-structure bill can clear the 60-vote threshold needed to advance. Majority Leader John Thune filed the cloture motion on August 8, setting the date.
A former defense secretary entered the debate this week. Mark Esper, who ran the Pentagon from 2019 to 2020 and sits on Coinbase's Global Advisory Council, wrote in a Financial Times op-ed that the CLARITY Act is a national security measure. China and sanctioned networks gain ground every day the United States delays clear crypto rules, he argued. The op-ed is his strongest public statement yet on U.S. crypto policy.
Esper's case turns on the dollar. U.S. economic power depends on the dollar and the payment systems built around it, he wrote. If crypto activity moves offshore to places with looser rules, Washington loses the ability to track it and sanctions become harder to enforce. Rivals like China could then set the rules for global finance instead of the United States, he warned.
He made the same case on X on August 2, calling the act "a national security imperative."
Cloture requires 60 votes, and Republicans cannot reach that number without Democratic support. The House passed the bill in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote. The Senate Banking Committee advanced it in May 2026 on a 15-9 tally, with two Democrats joining Republicans.
Galaxy Research no longer expects that coalition to hold. The firm cut its odds for passage in 2026 to 10%, citing Senate delays and lobbying from banks. Several issues remain unresolved, including rules on officials' crypto holdings and bank concerns over stablecoin yields. Provisions meant to stop illicit finance still have gaps. The Dallas Fed has warned that tokenized deposits could trigger bank rate wars.
If the vote fails, the industry could face a mix of different rules from different agencies until at least 2027. Agencies are not waiting on Congress. CFTC Chair Michael Selig has said his agency will move ahead with crypto rules whether or not CLARITY passes. Rules made by agencies can be reversed more easily than laws passed by Congress, especially after elections change who controls those agencies.
Uncertainty over the bill has already touched crypto companies. Circle, the company behind a widely used stablecoin, has seen its shares affected by the ongoing delay. The White House convened the president with the SEC and CFTC chairs before the Senate recess. It has said it remains focused on getting the bill passed in September.
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