Sen. Kennedy’s CLARITY Act Vote Locks In Senate Banking Committee Passage

Sen. John Kennedy will vote yes on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act in Thursday’s Senate Banking Committee markup, locking in Republican support that clears the crypto market structure bill regardless of how Democrats vote.

The Louisiana Republican reportedly struck a deal with Chairman Tim Scott to add a fiduciary duty provision for people working in the crypto industry and to attach Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Build Now Act housing bill to the package.

Bipartisan Deal Flips CLARITY Act Committee Math

The Senate Banking panel splits 13 Republicans to 11 Democrats. Every GOP vote was needed to advance the bill, and Kennedy had been the only holdout heading into Thursday’s session.

Chairman Scott released the 309-page legislative text Tuesday after months of negotiation over stablecoin yield rules. The bill passed the House 294 to 134 in July 2025 but stalled in the Senate over those disputes.

White House crypto director David Sacks framed the markup as a major win for U.S. competitiveness and thanked Senate staff for the compromises that produced the current text.

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Amendments and DeFi Pushback Loom

Senate Banking members filed more than 100 amendments before Wednesday’s deadline. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, Andy Kim, Chris Van Hollen, Warren and Jack Reed are pushing proposals that the DeFi Education Fund describes as anti-DeFi.

Those amendments target the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, protections for non-controlling software developers, DeFi front-end interfaces and tokenization provisions.

Kennedy said he will hear Democratic amendments but signaled an ethics provision is unlikely to make committee.

Polymarket traders now price the bill’s 2026 passage odds at 73%, and recent polling shows a majority of voters back the framework.

A successful committee vote sends the legislation to the Senate floor before the Memorial Day recess.