The Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 on May 14 to advance the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act to the full Senate. Democrats Ruben Gallego (AZ) and Angela Alsobrooks (MD) joined all 13 Republicans. The vote came after the committee debated over 100 amendments; the bipartisan compromise on stablecoin passive yield, brokered by Senators Tillis and Alsobrooks earlier this month, held. The White House has set a July 4 deadline for the bill to reach President Trump's desk.
A 15-9 vote with two Democratic crossovers is a real bipartisan signal. The committee vote was the procedural gate I flagged in last week's coverage. The bill now needs reconciliation with a parallel measure that passed the Senate Agriculture Committee. Both versions need to merge into one text before floor debate begins. Then the floor vote needs 60 senators. Republicans hold 53. Seven Democrats minimum need to support the merged text. Alsobrooks already said she will not support the floor version until outstanding issues are addressed, which means the seven Democratic votes have not yet been counted. Law enforcement groups have lobbied that the bill does not do enough on illicit finance, and major labor groups have warned about stablecoin exposure in pension and retirement funds. Those constituencies will pressure floor Democrats hard. Seven weeks for reconciliation, floor debate, House conference, and presidential signature is a sprint by Senate standards.
For token issuers and exchanges: committee passage shifts the planning baseline from "maybe in 2026" to "probably in 2026." Build the operational compliance work now under the bill's current text. Expect floor amendments to move the security-commodity boundary at the margins, not in substance.