Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture early Saturday on the motion to proceed to debate over the Clarity Act, giving the crypto market structure bill a path to the floor when lawmakers return from their August recess next month.
Thune (R-S.D.) filed the motion at 4:52 a.m. ET, according to the Senate Press Gallery's floor log, at the end of an overnight session that ran past the chamber's scheduled Friday departure. Thune first filed cloture on the nomination of Matthew R. Byrne to be a federal district judge in Ohio and then on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
The gallery lists a 5:30 p.m. cloture vote Monday on the Byrne nomination. Under an agreement reached by the Senate early Saturday reported by Crypto in America's Eleanor Terrett, the chamber will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Clarity Act at 2:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 15.
Invoking cloture would limit debate on the motion to proceed; it would not pass the bill or begin debate on the legislation itself. Republicans hold 53 seats, so the motion would need support from at least seven Democrats or independents if every Republican voted for it.
Thune told The Block late Thursday that the procedural vote was slipping to September, saying Democrats had insisted on no Clarity vote before the break. "We're getting that queued up first thing when we come back," he said at the time.
