CLARITY Act cloture fails 49-50: 18 GENIUS Democrats voted no

The 18 Democratic senators who voted "yea" for the passage of the GENIUS Act on June 17, 2025, all 18 of them, voted "nay" on the cloture of the CLARITY Act on September 15, 2026. The cloture vote—the mechanism that ends debate and requires 60 out of 100 votes, serving as the filter that determines whether a bill even reaches the floor for discussion in the U.S. Senate—failed 49 to 50. The 49 "yeas" were Republicans, while the 50 "nays" included 44 Democrats, the two independents (Angus King and Bernie Sanders), and four Republicans—one of whom, Thom Tillis, switched to the winning side to be eligible to move for reconsideration. The scoreboard mirrors the 48-49 failure of the GENIUS Act's first cloture on May 8, 2025, but the sequence of events is reversed: in 2025, the Democratic "nay" came before a negotiated text existed, and eleven days later, 16 Democrats flipped their votes once that text was released; in 2026, the "nay" arrived two days after a 635-page substitute amendment was published, and the statement released by seven Democratic negotiators on September 16 sets no specific conditions. With Tillis returning to "yea" and the other three Republicans (Collins, Hawley, Moran) holding their "nay," the Republican ceiling is 50: the bill needs ten Democrats to reach 60, not just the seven who signed the note. What follows is a vote-by-vote cross-reference of the four roll calls, an analysis of what changed in the ethics clause between July and September, and the key dates to watch to see if the 2025 cycle repeats itself.

What did the Senate vote on Sep-15-2026 and why did the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) cloture fail 49-50?

Vote No. 234 of the second session of the 119th Congress was a cloture vote on the motion to proceed (the request to move to consideration of the project, a prerequisite to debating its text) to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (the crypto "market structure bill" in the U.S. press), number 423 on the Senate legislative calendar. Majority Leader John Thune had filed that cloture motion at 4:52 AM ET on August 7, 2026; the Daily Press for September 14 scheduled the vote for the 15th at 2:15 PM. The vote opened at 2:18 PM ET; by 3:00 PM, the Daily Press recorded the result: 49-50 with 60 votes required (Reuters, CNBC, and others reported "50-49," listing the winning side first; the official XML records 49 yeas and 50 nays, the convention used here). Chris Coons (D-DE) did not vote.

Substitute amendment EHF26724 (a text that entirely replaces the version passed by the House), 635 pages published on September 13 by Cynthia Lummis (Chair of the Banking Committee's Digital Assets Subcommittee), John Boozman (Chair of the Agriculture Committee), and Tim Scott (Chair of the Banking Committee) at 11:51 PM UTC as the "final text," would only have been introduced on the floor if cloture had succeeded. What the Senate decided was whether to begin considering those 635 pages; the content itself was never voted on. The mechanics of the 60-vote threshold and why this first cloture would not have cleared the bill from the Senate on its own are detailed in the June piece on the Senate floor and the August piece on the final window and the SEC's Plan B.

Who voted how: The 18 Democrats who said "yea" to GENIUS and the four Republicans who said "nay" to CLARITY?

The table cross-references the four relevant roll call votes: the two cloture votes for the GENIUS Act (S.1582) on its motion to proceed, the final passage of the GENIUS Act, and the cloture vote for the CLARITY Act. Only senators whose votes changed at some point in the series, those who were absent, and the two seat substitutions are shown; the 23 Democrats and two independents (Angus King and Bernie Sanders) who voted "nay" all four times, and the Republicans who voted "yea" all four times, are omitted.

The tally breaks down as follows: Eighteen Democrats voted "yea" for the passage of the GENIUS Act (No. 318, 68-30), and all eighteen voted "nay" on the CLARITY Act cloture; no Democrat or independent voted "yea" on September 15. Of those 18, seven signed the joint statement on September 16 (Alsobrooks, Booker, Cortez Masto, Gallego, Gillibrand, Warner, and Warnock), while the other eleven (Fetterman, Hassan, Heinrich, Hickenlooper, Kim, Luján, Ossoff, Padilla, Rosen, Schiff, and Slotkin) have not published any conditions that could be located as of September 19. Lisa Blunt Rochester is not among the 18 because she voted "nay" on the passage of GENIUS, although she had voted for its second cloture.

On the Republican side, there were three shifts from "yea" to "nay": Susan Collins, Jerry Moran, and Tillis. Josh Hawley did not change: he voted "nay" on the passage of GENIUS and "nay" on the CLARITY cloture. Rand Paul took the opposite path, with three "nays" for GENIUS and a "yea" for CLARITY; Tom Cotton, absent for the GENIUS passage, voted "yea." The aggregate composition remained the same across all four votes (53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, 2 independents), with two Republican-for-Republican substitutions who voted "yea": Darline Graham Nordone (South Carolina, sworn in July 14, 2026, following the death of Lindsey Graham) and Alan Armstrong (Oklahoma, appointed March 24, 2026, when Markwayne Mullin moved to Homeland Security).

In what order did the text and the Democratic "nay" arrive for GENIUS (2025) and CLARITY (2026)?

The parallel between the 48-49 of May 2025 and the 49-50 of September 2026 is real in terms of the scoreboard and the leadership's maneuver (Thune voted "nay" on May 8, 2025, to be able to move for reconsideration); the difference lies in the text-vote sequence.

In 2025, the sequence was nay, text, yea: the revised draft appeared between the two clotures, and 16 senators flipped their votes in eleven calendar days. In 2026, it was conditions, text, nay: the conditions were published on July 22, the text claiming to incorporate them appeared on September 13, and the "nay" arrived on the 15th. Of the 16 Democrats who flipped their votes in May 2025, 15 are among the 18 who voted "nay" in September 2026 (the exception is Blunt Rochester, who had already returned to "nay" in June 2025). Eleven calendar days from September 15, 2026, leads to Saturday, September 26, within the floor window that ends October 2: if the GENIUS cycle were to repeat, there is enough calendar time to see it before the recess.

What changed in Division C (Ethics) between amendment EHF26654 in July and EHF26724 in September?

Ethics is the only one of the five areas from the July 22 note that is comparable clause-by-clause, as both substitutes are available in PDF. In the July EHF26654 (616 pages), section 30105 set an expiration: the clause would be "of no force or effect as of noon on January 20, 2029," only the federal Attorney General could enforce it, and the fine was the lesser of 10% of the interest or $500,000. The piece on the August recess covers the Democratic rejection of that text, and the SEC Plan B piece covers the Tillis-Gallego formula from July 29 that added state attorneys general.

Division C of the September EHF26724 covers public officials and employees, elected officials (including the President, Vice President, and members of Congress), and their spouses; it defines a "significant financial interest" as a stake starting at $15,000 in digital asset issuers and mandates divestment or transfer to a blind trust (where the holder no longer knows or controls the portfolio composition); it imposes a penalty of the greater of 20% of the interest or $500,000; it opens civil action to both the U.S. Attorney General and state attorneys general; and it takes effect 360 days after enactment or 60 days after the final rule of section 10102 of the CLARITY Act itself, whichever comes first. Division C does not contain the word "sunset" or the year 2029: the July expiration disappeared, the fine doubled, and the state attorney general pathway was added.

Public statements following the "nay" vote do not point to a specific clause in the September text: Warnock attributes the failure to "Senate Republicans' insistence on protecting this president's rampant corruption"; Gallego to the fact that "Republican leadership ended talks and forced a vote"; CNBC summarized the Democratic position as the ethics rules failing to reach crypto businesses linked to the President and his family. None identify which article in Division C would need to change, nor does the September 16 note; the absence of a public list does not mean one does not exist in private.

What did Collins, Hawley, Moran, Tillis, Thune, Lummis, and the seven Democrats say about the CLARITY Act?

Collins (statement on September 16): "The CLARITY Act remains a moving target. It's now grown to more than 600 pages with provisions that need further study, such as whether it would cause community banks and credit unions to lose deposits that are the foundation for loans for mortgages, small businesses, and other family needs." The argument regarding bank deposits versus interest-bearing stablecoins is detailed with figures in the piece on stablecoin rewards and bank deposits.

Hawley had already cited community banks and Missouri agricultural credit on August 7, according to Politico (reported by Yahoo Finance, without his own press release): "They are blowing me up over it." There is no record of a statement from him after the vote. Moran has not published his own statement that could be located; NPR groups him with Collins and Hawley, but no primary source attributes a specific motive to his vote, and this article does not either.

Tillis, on September 15: "This is not the end for the Clarity Act. We've made substantial bipartisan progress in large part because of the White House. This procedural motion allows us to continue working towards a positive outcome." Thune, on the floor before the vote: "In the last year, 126 substantive changes have been made to the bill at the request of our Democrat colleagues. […] The question now is whether Democrats will take yes for an answer." Lummis, to reporters that same Tuesday before the vote, according to CNBC: "it's over" if cloture failed.

The seven Democrats (Gillibrand, Alsobrooks, Booker, Cortez Masto, Gallego, Warner, and Warnock), on September 16: "Democrats have spent the last two years working to pass crypto legislation that would expand opportunity, protect consumers, punish bad actors, create regulatory certainty, and include strong, commonsense ethics provisions for elected officials. This week was a setback, but not the end of that important work. We remain committed to working in a bipartisan fashion to get this legislation passed." Two sentences, no deadlines, and no specific clauses. The July 22 note from this same group listed five areas.

How many Democrats does the CLARITY Act need to reach 60 votes: seven or ten?

Several reports from September 15 and 16 speak of "seven Democrats" who supported GENIUS and opposed CLARITY. Those seven are the negotiators who signed the joint statement on September 16, 2026; however, Democratic senators with a "yea" for GENIUS and a "nay" for CLARITY number 18 according to the XML cross-reference, and this distinction changes the arithmetic.

Given the composition on September 15 (53 Republicans) and assuming Tillis returns to "yea" in a re-vote, the Republican ceiling is 50 if Collins, Hawley, and Moran maintain their "nay." To reach 60, ten Democrats are therefore required. The seven signatories would only be enough if all 53 Republicans voted "yea," and two of them, Collins and Hawley, have explained their "nay" in terms of substance (community bank deposits), while Moran has not explained his. Counting from the 49 on September 15, eleven votes are missing.

What are Polymarket and Kalshi paying for the CLARITY Act after the 49-50?

Hourly series downloaded from public APIs of Polymarket ("Clarity Act (H.R.3633) signed into law in 2026?") and Kalshi (KXCRYPTOSTRUCTURE ladder, "crypto market structure bill becomes law before…"); prices for the "yea" token, Polymarket in percentage and Kalshi in dollars per contract, where $0.091 corresponds to an implicit 9.1%.

The Polymarket contract was trading at 17.5% at 6:00 PM UTC on September 15, eighteen minutes before the vote opened, and at 4.5% at 7:00 PM UTC, the time the Daily Press recorded the result; it hit a low (4.35%) at 3:00 AM UTC on the 16th and has recovered to 8.45% as of September 19, with $21.95 million traded. Kalshi settled its contracts on the number of "yeas" in the cloture (KXVOTECLARITY-26SEP15) at 7:52 PM UTC on the 15th: "at least 48" paid out "yea" and "at least 50" paid out "no."

Polymarket contracts by Senate passage date, as of 10:19 UTC on September 19: before September 25, 1.35%; before October 2, 1.5%; before October 9, 2.4%; before October 31, 7.5%. On September 17 at 3:58 PM UTC, those same contracts stood at 1.35%, 0.6%, 3.55%, and 9.0%. Own calculation based on these figures: since signing requires prior Senate passage, at least 6.95 of the 8.45 points for "signed in 2026" correspond to passage after October 2—that is, in the period between the November 3 elections and the adjournment of Congress. The market is discounting reconsideration before the recess almost to zero.

What happens now with the CLARITY Act: Active dates until January 3, 2027?

Tillis's Reconsideration. Senate Rule XIII allows anyone who voted with the winning side to move to reconsider the vote on the same day or within the next two session days; Tillis filed it at 3:01 PM ET on September 15. The motion remains pending, with no expiration of its own, until it is voted on (simple majority) or laid on the table; if it succeeds, the cloture vote would be repeated and would again require 60 votes.

The Senate Calendar. Following the pro forma session on September 18, the Senate returns on Tuesday the 22nd at 3:00 PM ET. October 2 is a session day: a September 16 agreement on H.Con.Res.89 (the war powers resolution regarding Iran) sets that Friday as the deadline for another vote. The official calendar marks the state work period from October 5 to November 6, with legislative elections on November 3.

Clocks independent of the Senate. The Treasury's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding section 3 of the GENIUS Act (91 FR 53368, docket TREAS-DO-2026-0496) accepts comments until October 19, 2026. The GENIUS Act takes effect on January 18, 2027 (18 months from enactment, unless final rules arrive sooner); what this implies for USDT and exchanges is detailed in the piece on the January 2027 deadline. The SEC issued an exemption on September 17 (Release 2026-90), two days after the 49-50 vote, for a five-year period to trade tokenized listed (NMS system) stocks; its pre-vote Plan B is in the August piece on Regulation Crypto Assets.

What would disprove the thesis that the CLARITY Act is not repeating the GENIUS Act cycle?

The thesis (inverse text-vote sequence; 18 Democratic votes lost with the text already published) is disproven if, before Friday, October 2, 2026, the Senate votes on Tillis's reconsideration and the cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 reaches 60 votes or more: that would be the eleven-day GENIUS cycle repeated. It is disproven in a weak version if that result arrives between November 9 and the adjournment of Congress on January 3, 2027: the claim that the 2026 window closed on September 15 would fall, but not the vote cross-reference, which is a historical record and does not change. If October 2 arrives without a new roll call vote on H.R. 3633, the comparison with GENIUS moves from thesis to fact: two failed clotures with the same score, one followed by 16 vote flips in eleven days and the other followed by a five-week recess.

Sources and links: senate.gov — XML for vote No. 234 (Sep-15-2026) · GovTrack — CSV for vote No. 234 · senate.gov — XML for vote No. 318, GENIUS passage (Jun-17-2025) · senate.gov — XML for vote No. 240, first GENIUS cloture (May-8-2025) · GovTrack — CSV for vote No. 262, second GENIUS cloture (May-19-2025) · Senate Daily Press — Sep-15-2026 session · Senate Daily Press — Sep-14-2026, vote time · Senate Daily Press — cloture filing (Aug-7-2026) · Senate Daily Press — Sep-18-2026 pro forma session and Sep-22 return · Senate Democrats — Sep-15-2026 wrap-up (Cal. #423) · Senate Democrats — Sep-17-2026 wrap-up · GovTrack — H.R. 3633 action history · Lummis — final text publication note (Sep-13-2026) · PDF of substitute amendment EHF26724 (635 pages, September) · Lummis — "What's New in the Final Clarity Act Text" · Lummis — July text publication note (Jul-22-2026) · PDF of amendment EHF26654 (616 pages, July) · Lummis — ethics summary of July text · Gillibrand — joint note from seven senators (Sep-16-2026) · Warner — joint note against July text (Jul-22-2026) · Warnock — statement after the vote · Gallego — statement after the vote · Collins — statement (Sep-16-2026) · Thune — floor intervention (Sep-15-2026) · Tillis — message after filing for reconsideration · CNBC — vote report and Lummis quote · Politico via Yahoo Finance — Hawley (Aug-7-2026) · NPR — vote report · Senate Rules — Rule XIII (reconsideration) · senate.gov — 2026 legislative calendar · NPR — Darline Graham Nordone takes South Carolina seat · Roll Call — Alan Armstrong appointment · Polymarket — "signed into law in 2026" contract (API) · Polymarket — "Senate passes by…" contracts (API) · Kalshi — KXCRYPTOSTRUCTURE-26JAN-27 (API) · Federal Register — Treasury NPRM on GENIUS section 3 · govinfo — Public Law 119-27 (GENIUS Act) · SEC — Release 2026-90, tokenized stock exemption (Sep-17-2026)