CLARITY Act Faces 100+ Amendments Just Before Make-or-Break May 14 Vote

It is May 13, 2026. In less than 24 hours, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee will open what is shaping up to be the most contested crypto hearing in American legislative history. At 10:30 AM Eastern Time on Thursday, May 14, 2026, committee members will convene in Room 538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. to begin debating, amending, and voting on the 309-page Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act.

What was supposed to be a straightforward committee markup has now turned into a full-scale legislative battle. According to Politico, committee members have filed more than 100 amendments to the bill. 

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett disclosed on X that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) alone submitted over 40 of those amendments, including one that would block the Federal Reserve from granting master accounts to crypto companies. 

Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) went even further, proposing an amendment that would explicitly ban cryptocurrencies from ever being recognized as legal tender in the United States. This also includes a prohibition on using crypto to pay taxes at any level of government.

The amendment flood is arriving on top of an already brutal political environment for the bill. Five of the country’s largest labor unions came out against the CLARITY Act this week. The banking lobby rejected the stablecoin yield compromise on May 9. And the ethics standoff between Democrats and Republicans remains completely unresolved, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer personally stepping in to push for progress, and a bipartisan meeting on Tuesday producing nothing concrete.

The bill was officially released on May 12 by Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) through the Senate Banking Committee’s official page. Thefull 309-page draft, a section-by-section breakdown, and a Myth vs. Fact sheet were all published alongside the text. The House-passed version of the bill is publicly available on Congress.gov under H.R.3633.

Warren’s 40-plus amendments: The largest single filing from any member

Senator Warren’s amendment count is the highest from any individual committee member, and her package extends well beyond the ethics provisions she has been pushing for in recent weeks. The most aggressive proposal in her filing would prevent the Federal Reserve from granting master accounts to crypto companies. 

A Fed master account provides direct access to the central bank’s payment rails, including real-time settlement through Fedwire and participation in the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. Blocking crypto firms from this access would cut them off from one of the most critical on-ramps into the traditional financial system that several companies in the industry have been actively pursuing.

During the January 2026 markup attempt, which was cancelled after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pulled the company’s support, Warren had filed more than 20 amendments targeting stablecoin yield and crypto-friendly guidance issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). 

She has now more than doubled that number to over 40, signaling a deliberate strategy to either reshape the bill from within or force difficult votes on the record that slow down its path to the Senate floor.

In a statement released via the Senate Banking Committee’s minority press page, Warren described the current version of the bill as one that puts “investors, our national security, and our entire financial system at risk.” She pointed to what she estimated is $1.4 billion in crypto-related gains by President Donald Trump and his family and called the total absence of ethics provisions from the 309-page bill “stunning.”

As The Crypto Times reported on Tuesday, Warren urged that no committee member should support legislation that fails to address what she called “the massive conflict of interests posed by Donald Trump and his family’s crypto ventures.”

Reed proposes to ban crypto as legal tender and block tax payments in digital assets

Senator Jack Reed’s amendment draws a completely different kind of line. His proposal would explicitly prohibit cryptocurrencies from ever being recognized as legal tender in the United States. It does not stop at the conceptual level. 

The amendment would ban the use of crypto to pay taxes at the federal, state, and local levels, drawing a hard statutory line against any future scenario where digital currencies could be used to settle government obligations.

Reed has been one of the most consistent crypto skeptics on the committee. He and Warren have previously collaborated on the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act and have jointly pressed the Department of Justice and Treasury on national security risks tied to Trump-affiliated crypto ventures. 

Galaxy Digital’s research team has flagged Reed as one of the Democratic members most likely to oppose the CLARITY Act, regardless of any compromise that is reached.

His legal tender amendment fits within a broader pattern of Democratic senators using the markup process to push maximalist proposals that test the limits of what the Republican majority will accept.

Five major labor unions formally oppose the bill

In what may be the most politically significant development heading into Thursday, five of the country’s largest labor unions have formally come out against the CLARITY Act. As The Crypto Times reported on May 12, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA), and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) all sent letters to the Senate Banking Committee warning that the bill could jeopardize retirement accounts for millions of American workers.

The AFL-CIO, which represents over 12.5 million members and is the largest labor federation in the country, warned in its letter that the CLARITY Act “will prompt a flood of digital assets into pension plans, retirement accounts, and our broader financial system under an ineffective regulatory system.” 

The federation argued that while the bill would make “a small number of wealthy people even wealthier,” it would put working people at risk. The AFL-CIO urged the committee to oppose the bill outright.

The unions’ opposition is directly tied to President Trump’s February 2026 executive order that cleared the way for pension funds and retirement accounts to hold cryptocurrency assets. Labor leaders argue that combining that executive order with the CLARITY Act’s regulatory framework would create a direct pipeline for volatile digital assets to flow into workers’ retirement savings without the protections that currently exist for traditional financial instruments.

This is politically significant because organized labor carries enormous weight with Democratic senators, the exact group of lawmakers the CLARITY Act needs to reach its 60-vote threshold on the Senate floor. The AFL-CIO’s opposition makes it even harder for the handful of Democratic Banking Committee members who might have considered crossing the aisle to support the bill.

The banking lobby rejected the stablecoin compromise

The labor opposition arrives on top of the banking industry’s own sustained campaign against the bill. On May 9, the three largest U.S. banking trade groups, the American Bankers Association (ABA), the Bank Policy Institute, and the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), formally rejected the Tillis-Alsobrooks stablecoin yield compromise that was brokered on May 1 to break the months-long stalemate.

The ABA’s CEO, Rob Nichols, reportedly told bank executives to call their senators over the weekend, arguing that the activity-based rewards carve-out in the bill still functions too much like interest-bearing deposit accounts and could trigger a migration of capital from the traditional banking system into stablecoin wallets. 

The banking groups warned that every dollar moving from a checking account to a stablecoin balance is a dollar of cheap funding that banks lose, threatening their ability to issue mortgages, small-business loans, and agricultural credit.

The banking lobby and organized labor almost never align on financial regulation. Their convergence against the CLARITY Act, with banks opposing the competitive threat to deposits and unions warning about pension risk, creates a two-pronged political squeeze on committee Democrats who might otherwise have considered supporting the bill.

Schumer personally intervenes on ethics, but no deal emerges

The ethics provision remains the single biggest obstacle to bipartisan support. The 309-page bill contains zero restrictions on senior government officials profiting from the crypto industry while shaping its regulation. Democrats have made this a non-negotiable condition for their votes, and the issue has now drawn in the highest levels of Democratic leadership.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on May 12 that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer personally attended a Democratic member meeting where he appeared “engaged and eager for members to get to a yes on the Clarity Act” but stressed that ethics negotiations need to be further along before Thursday’s markup.

The Majority Leader’s personal involvement signals that Democratic leadership views the ethics fight not as a side issue but as the central obstacle to delivering a bill both parties can support on the Senate floor. 

His insistence on more progress before Thursday also suggests that a party-line markup without Democratic buy-in is something the leadership wants to avoid, not just for the CLARITY Act itself, but for the broader political optics of regulating an industry in which the sitting President holds direct financial interests.

As The Crypto Times reported in its detailed analysis, a bipartisan meeting held Tuesday morning, where ethics issues were discussed, produced no concrete agreement. GOP and Democratic staff were set to reconvene Tuesday evening to review the filed amendments, but the gap between the two sides remained wide.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is named on Title I of the bill, told the audience at Consensus 2026 in Miami that the CLARITY Act will not go forward without an ethics provision. She did not leave room for interpretation: “This provision will be part of this bill, or it will not go forward. Because we cannot let greed and corruption in Washington tear this industry down, and without that provision, that’s exactly what will happen.” 

Her office backed the position by citing a CoinDesk-commissioned poll showing 73% of registered U.S. voters support restricting officials from profiting off crypto while regulating it.

Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is reportedly pushing for even stronger provisions specifically targeting the Trump family’s crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial and the TRUMP memecoin.

The White House has drawn its own line on the other side. Crypto adviser Patrick Witt said the administration supports ethics rules applied uniformly across all government positions but will reject any provision that singles out a specific officeholder or family. Witt has confirmed the administration’s July 4 target for signing the CLARITY Act into law.

That puts the White House and Senate Democrats on a direct collision course. Democrats want provisions that address the Trump family’s expanding crypto portfolio. The White House says it will reject any language targeting a specific person. 

The gap between “uniform rules” and “targeted restrictions” is exactly the fault line where the CLARITY Act could fracture, and Tuesday’s bipartisan meeting produced no concrete direction, suggesting that fault line has not narrowed.

The 100-plus amendment avalanche puts the timeline in question

The sheer volume of amendments creates a logistical and political challenge that goes beyond the ethics debate. Over 100 amendments mean Thursday’s session could stretch well beyond a single day. Each amendment must be formally introduced, debated, and voted on. 

If Democrats choose to force roll-call votes on a significant portion of their filings, the markup could turn into a multi-day marathon that eats directly into the narrow window before the May 21 Memorial Day recess.

Senate Republicans mounted a preemptive defense of the bill on May 12, releasing aMyth vs. Fact sheet that pushed back on claims that the CLARITY Act would weaken securities law, create loopholes, or ignore illicit finance risks. 

The committee’s Republican majority argued that the bill instead assigns clear regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC, requires disclosures, and adds anti-fraud protections across digital asset markets.

Chairman Scott has publicly framed the legislation as the product of “serious, good-faith work across the committee” and said it “puts consumers first, combats illicit finance, cracks down on criminals and foreign adversaries and keeps the future of finance here in the United States.”

The 60-vote math and the Kennedy question

Scott can technically pass the bill out of committee on a party-line vote. The Senate Banking Committee has 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats. But the committee vote is not the real test.

On the full Senate floor, 60 votes are required for passage. The GENIUS Act cleared the Senate 68-30 last year with strong bipartisan support. Without ethics language, Democrats are organizing against the CLARITY Act rather than toward it, making that kind of margin nearly impossible to replicate. At least seven Democrats would need to cross the aisle.

Even the committee vote is not guaranteed. According to Punchbowl News, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) has not committed to voting yes, and his hesitation reportedly has nothing to do with crypto policy. If even one Republican defects, Scott would need a Democratic crossover to pass the bill out of committee.

Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who ran on a moderate platform with crypto industry support, is considered the most likely Democratic swing vote but has not committed publicly. Galaxy Digital’s Head of Research, Alex Thorn, has said that while the bill can still advance out of committee on a partisan vote, “the odds of ultimate Senate passage are certainly diminished if no Democrats vote in favor during committee markup on Thursday.”

Senator Cynthia Lummis has warned repeatedly that if the bill does not clear the committee before the May 21 Memorial Day recess, it could effectively be pushed to 2030. Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) has echoed the same warning.

The crypto industry is watching

On the other side of the fight, the crypto industry has rallied behind the bill and is urging lawmakers to move forward. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong backed the CLARITY Act after reversing his January opposition following the Tillis-Alsobrooks stablecoin yield compromise on May 1. 

The Blockchain Association called the legislation “a step in the right direction.”Michael Saylor praised the bill’s digital yield provisions as a potential game-changer for institutional adoption.

The DeFi Education Fund said it was “encouraged by the direction of recent negotiations” and pointed to the bill’s protections for developers and infrastructure providers under the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act and Exchange Act provisions.

Coinbase, Robinhood, the Digital Chamber, the Blockchain Association, and the Solana Policy Institute have all publicly urged passage, framing the bill as a bipartisan, voter-backed priority. A HarrisX poll released last week found that 52% of registered voters support the CLARITY Act, with 70% of Americans saying Congress should have already passed crypto legislation.

On Polymarket, the odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 currently sit at roughly 75%.

But that number gets stress-tested tomorrow morning.

What happens at 10:30 AM ET tomorrow

In less than 24 hours, Room 538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building becomes the center of the crypto world.

Thursday, May 14, 2026 10:30 AM Eastern Time | 8:00 PM Indian Standard Time

Three outcomes are possible.

The bill passes committee cleanly, potentially with one or two Democratic crossovers, and heads to reconciliation with the Senate Agriculture Committee’s version before a full Senate floor vote targeted for June. That would keep the White House’s July 4 signing timeline alive and send a strong bipartisan signal to the market.

The bill passes on a strict 13-11 party-line vote. It still advances, but the signal is that 60 votes on the Senate floor will be extremely difficult to reach without meaningful concessions on ethics. The realistic signing timeline slips to October or later.

The bill stalls or fails. If Kennedy defects, or if procedural delays from 100-plus amendments push the session past the May 21 Memorial Day recess without a completed vote, the CLARITY Act effectively dies for 2026 and potentially for the rest of the decade.

Warren’s 40-plus amendments. Reed’s legal tender ban. The AFL-CIO’s pension warning. The banking lobby’s stablecoin rejection. Schumer’s personal intervention. The unresolved ethics standoff. Over 100 proposed changes to a 309-page bill. It has all converged on the same 24-hour window.

The CLARITY Act has survived every obstacle thrown at it over the past 10 months. Tomorrow, it faces all of them at once.

Also Read: CLARITY Act’s May 14 Senate Test: What Happens Next?

Disclaimer: The information researched and reported by The Crypto Times is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional financial advice. Investing in crypto assets involves significant risk due to market volatility. Always Do Your Own Research (DYOR) and consult with a qualified Financial Advisor before making any investment decisions.