House Republicans have sharply reduced the time available to pass the CLARITY Act before the November midterm elections, making the cryptocurrency market-structure bill’s passage before the vote “extremely unlikely”, according to Galaxy Digital Head of Research Alex Thorn.
Republican leaders cancelled voting weeks beginning 21 September and 28 September, bringing forward the House’s planned departure from Washington from 1 October to 17 September. The chamber is due to return on 14 September for four days of voting before leaving the capital until after the midterms.
The revised timetable creates an immediate obstacle for the legislation. The Senate’s first major procedural vote on the bill is scheduled for 15 September, just two days before the House is due to leave.
Although the Senate has about three weeks of scheduled work extending into early October, any version approved by senators must ultimately be aligned with the legislation already passed by the House before it can be sent to President Donald Trump.
The House approved the CLARITY Act by 294 votes to 134 in July 2025. Since then, the Senate has been working on amended wording, meaning a successful vote in the upper chamber would not necessarily complete the legislative process.
Punchbowl News reporter Brendan Pedersen said senators could potentially complete the required procedure in roughly a week and a half if negotiations progressed smoothly. The timeframe would depend on the number and substance of amendments.
Before the House altered its calendar, that schedule could still have left lawmakers with enough time to consider a Senate bill quickly. The late-September opportunity has now disappeared.
The pressure comes as the White House, congressional Republicans and financial regulators increase their calls for legislation governing the cryptocurrency market.
Trump urged Congress last week to pass “a fair version of the Clarity Act”. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has also described legislation as “indispensable”, despite the commission developing its own rules for digital assets.
French Hill, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has separately called on the Senate to move forward. He highlighted the 78 Democrats who joined Republicans in supporting the bill when it passed the House.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis had already warned that the legislative deadline was becoming increasingly difficult to meet. When she published updated CLARITY text in July, she said the weeks ahead could represent the “last real chance” for years to complete market-structure legislation.
Market expectations remain pessimistic. Traders on prediction platform Polymarket are assigning less than a 20% probability that the CLARITY Act will become law by 31 December.
The revised timetable does not, however, eliminate the bill’s chances entirely. Lauren Belive, Ripple’s head of policy, said post-election lame-duck sessions had repeatedly produced significant negotiated legislation, including after elections that changed which party controlled Congress.
That possibility places the immediate responsibility on the Senate. If senators can agree on a broadly settled bipartisan bill before Election Day, the House could still consider it during a lame-duck session after the election.
Such a route would bring additional political uncertainty. Either chamber, or both, could change party control in November, potentially altering lawmakers’ priorities and willingness to support the bill when Congress returns.
The Senate vote scheduled for 15 September will therefore provide the first major indication of whether the legislation can regain momentum. CLARITY could still reach Trump’s desk in 2026, but the House’s shortened calendar has made passage before the midterms exceptionally difficult.
