Republicans Release Final 635‑Page Clarity Act Before Vote

Senate Republicans released a 635‑page final draft of the Clarity Act on Sunday, folding in Democratic edits and substantially rewriting the bill’s ethics title. The Senate is scheduled to vote Tuesday afternoon on cloture for the motion to proceed; cloture requires 60 votes.

Senators Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman and Tim Scott said their offices counted 126 substantive edits requested by Democrats and characterized the text as the result of more than a year of bipartisan negotiation.

The bill’s ethics division was retitled and rebuilt. It creates a ban on holding a “significant financial interest,” defined as $15,000 or more in equity in any firm that derived a plurality of its revenue from issuing or sponsoring tokens during the prior three years. Officials subject to the restriction would have to divest those holdings or place them in a blind trust. The September draft did not include a holding ban. Coverage in the new text extends to presidents‑elect, vice presidents‑elect and members‑elect before they are sworn in, but stops at spouses; children and dependents are not covered, which is narrower than federal disclosure rules that require reporting dependent children’s holdings.

The rewrite removes a 2029 sunset provision and eliminates the bill’s severability clause. Penalties were altered: what had been a 10% cap is now written as a 20% floor, adjusted for inflation, and penalties would apply both to the interest itself and to the underlying transaction. The final text restores standing for state attorneys general to bring suits; language in the earlier draft that barred state attorneys general and private plaintiffs by name was removed.

Outside the ethics title, the bill tightens rules on trading and market activities. The exchange own‑account rule is retitled as a prohibition on proprietary trading, with exceptions narrowed from activities described as “in support of the business” to those judged “necessary,” subject to forthcoming Commodity Futures Trading Commission rules. Exchanges and wallet providers, rather than issuers, could face a circuit‑breaker: if the Treasury Department finds within 18 months that community‑bank deposits are migrating into stablecoins, it must draft rules that reach yields “similar to” bank interest, a lower threshold than an outright ban. The draft broadens the definition of “network token,” labeling it a digital asset rather than a digital commodity, and preserves state deceptive‑practices enforcement unless preempted. CFTC carveouts would need to proceed through the Commodity Exchange Act’s Section 4(c) process.

The text offers protections for software developers in some circumstances by shielding them from Bank Secrecy Act registration and financial‑institution status, while removing an explicit protection from criminal money‑transmitting liability that appeared in the earlier draft.

Republicans presented the rewrite as their final offer ahead of Tuesday’s cloture vote. The updated language arrived days after President Donald Trump met with advisers about the ethics provisions. Senator Lummis said in a statement, “President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in U.S. history,” and she urged Democrats to accept the negotiated changes, adding that a “no” vote would amount to opposing ethics reforms on politicians’ personal investments.

The Tuesday cloture vote will determine whether debate on the Clarity Act proceeds to a final passage vote and whether the revisions win the seven Democratic votes Republicans need to advance the bill.