Kennedy backs CLARITY Act, clears Senate Banking Committee

Sen. John Kennedy will vote yes on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act at Thursday’s Senate Banking Committee markup, securing enough Republican support to advance the bill out of committee.

The Senate Banking Committee is divided 13 Republicans to 11 Democrats, and every GOP vote was needed to move the measure. Kennedy had been the only Republican holdout before reaching an agreement with Chair Tim Scott to add a fiduciary duty requirement for people working in the crypto industry and to attach Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Build Now Act housing bill. Scott released the 309-page legislative text Tuesday after months of talks over stablecoin yield rules.

The CLARITY Act, which passed the House 294-134 in July 2025, is a market-structure bill for the crypto sector. Senate action had stalled over disputes on how yields and related products tied to stablecoins should be regulated.

The package now includes a provision creating a fiduciary duty for industry participants and incorporates Warren’s housing legislation into the broader bill.

More than 100 amendments were filed before Wednesday’s deadline. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto, Andy Kim, Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed sponsored proposals that target the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, protections for non-controlling software developers, rules for DeFi front-end interfaces and tokenization provisions. The DeFi Education Fund described those measures as restrictive to decentralized finance.

Kennedy will consider Democratic amendments during the markup but has indicated an ethics provision is unlikely to be accepted in committee.

White House crypto director David Sacks called the markup “a major win for U.S. competitiveness” and thanked Senate staff for the compromises that produced the current text.

If the committee approves the bill, it would go to the Senate floor for consideration before the Memorial Day recess. Traders on a prediction market currently price the bill’s chance of passage in 2026 at about 73 percent, and recent polling shows a majority of voters back the framework.