The Senate voted 49-50 on Tuesday afternoon against taking up the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, blocking the crypto market structure bill a day after Republicans released what they called its final text.
Cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 needed 60 votes under a unanimous consent agreement entered Aug. 8. Voting began at 2:18 p.m. and the result was announced at 3:00 p.m., according to the Senate Daily Press floor log. Senator Chris Coons did not vote. Republicans hold 53 seats; four of them voted no — Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis — leaving 49 Republican yes votes as the full tally. No Democrat or independent voted to advance the bill.
The House passed H.R. 3633 by 294-134 in July 2025. The Senate text that failed Tuesday was an amendment in the nature of a substitute to that bill. Tillis voted no in order to make a motion to reconsider, which he made at 3:01 p.m., keeping a second cloture vote available without a new filing. The Senate then moved on to S. 4668, with a cloture vote set for about 4:15 p.m.
Seven Senate Democrats who negotiated the bill for a year — Mark Warner, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper and Raphael Warnock — said in July that the Republican text "falls short," naming ethics for elected officials first among the areas needing work. None withdrew that statement before Tuesday's vote.
Ethics Division Changes
Senators Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman and Tim Scott released the final text on Monday. The release lists 126 changes Democrats requested, five in the ethics division, and states the ethics language reflects "substantially all of the Tillis-Gallego ethics proposal." The Defiant reported that the ethics division drops the Jan. 20, 2029 sunset, reverses the July text's bar on state attorney general enforcement, and raises civil penalties to 20% of the take or $500,000, whichever is greater.