Senate Schedules CLARITY Act Vote for Sept. 15 After Cloture

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act early Saturday, setting up a procedural vote for Sept. 15. Thune submitted the motion at 4:52 a.m. ET, closing an overnight session that ran past the Senate's planned Friday adjournment.

The CLARITY Act would create a federal rulebook for digital asset markets, deciding whether tokens count as securities or commodities and assigning oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. For exchanges and token issuers, the classification determines which agency's rules apply to their products, the central question in crypto market analysis.

Cloture limits debate on whether the bill deserves full floor consideration. It doesn't guarantee passage. The motion itself needs 60 votes, three-fifths of the chamber. Republicans hold 53 seats, so Thune must find seven votes from Democrats or independents. A successful vote would move the bill to floor debate and a separate final vote.

Thune told The Block last week that Democrats had demanded no vote before the August recess. "We're getting that queued up first thing when we come back," he said.

The filing leaves the disputes that stalled the bill before recess untouched. The remaining fights cover ethics standards and illicit-finance safeguards, a Democratic Senate aide said, with Senate Agriculture Committee language still to be folded in.