Clarity Act Dies in Senate, Crypto PACs Pivot to Spending Millions Against Sherrod Brown in Ohio

The crypto industry's biggest legislative bet of the year collapsed on Tuesday, September 15, when the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, 49-50, according to the Epoch Times. The bill needed 60 votes to move forward. It got neither that nor a simple majority.

Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), the bill's lead architect, told reporters afterward it was finished. "I think we're done. It's over," Lummis said, according to Fox News. Asked if the bill would return to the floor, she said: "Nope."

A Year of Negotiation, Dead in One Vote

The Clarity Act had cleared the Banking Committee in May 2026 and grown to more than 600 pages after what Lummis described as over a year of bipartisan talks, Fox News and the Epoch Times both reported. Democrats secured more than 100 concessions, Lummis said, and the bill would have split crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC, giving the CFTC new authority over spot markets, according to Trending Topics.

It still failed. Democrats, led by senators including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), wanted stronger ethics language to stop President Trump and his family from profiting off crypto policy while he's in office. "It allows the corruption of the president to continue," Booker told Fox News Digital.

That concern isn't hypothetical. Trump's disclosed income jumped roughly 250% between 2024 and 2025, from about $620 million to approximately $2.2 billion, according to financial disclosure forms reviewed by Fox News Digital. Much of that growth came from crypto ventures run by his sons Don Jr. and Eric. Republicans did add a provision letting state attorneys general enforce ethics requirements on federal officials, and Lummis said Trump endorsed it. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told Fox News Digital he and Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) were close to a stronger fix before a staffer from Senator Tim Scott's office cut off talks. Whether the final ethics language was adequate remained disputed.

Republicans weren't unified either. Tillis switched his vote from yes to no at the last moment, according to the Epoch Times, and Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) had their own unresolved objections, Fox News reported. Banks also opposed language on stablecoin yields, worried it would pull deposits out of the traditional banking system, according to Trending Topics.

Bitcoin fell from near $78,000 to about $75,800, down 2.8% in 24 hours, after the vote, Trending Topics reported, citing CoinDesk. XRP dropped more than 9%, while Solana, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Hyperliquid each lost 4% to 5.5%.

The Fight Moves to Ohio

With the bill dead for this Congress, the industry's focus has shifted to the midterms, specifically to keeping Sherrod Brown out of the Senate Banking chairmanship he held from 2021 to 2025. Brown is challenging incumbent Republican Jon Husted, who was appointed to the seat by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine after JD Vance became vice president.

As chair, Brown held a February 2023 hearing on the FTX collapse and consistently blocked industry-friendly bills from reaching the floor, according to Tech Times. That record is why the industry is targeting him again.

FEC filings show Fairshake's affiliated PAC, Defend American Jobs, spent $11.4 million on ads backing Husted and opposing Brown, according to filings reported by both TradingView and ChainCatcher. Fairshake, backed by Coinbase and Ripple Labs, has pledged an initial $30 million for the race. On September 30, the Winklevoss twins' Digital Freedom Fund added $2.9 million in a single day, its first candidate-targeted spend of the cycle, split between mail opposing Brown and ads boosting Husted, according to Tech Times.

Ohio saw similar dynamics in the 2024 race. Brown lost to Bernie Moreno 50.2% to 46.4% after crypto-aligned PACs spent about $41 million against him, part of more than $300 million in total outside spending in that race, TradingView reported. Tech Times frames total industry spending on the Banking Committee fight at "more than $300 million," though that figure appears to span multiple election cycles rather than a single, cleanly documented 2026 total. Separately, ChainCatcher noted Fairshake entered this cycle with a $122 million war chest after a strong run in the primaries.

The industry isn't limiting itself to the Senate race. In Ohio's governor's race, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy has drawn $16,615 donations each from three co-founders of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture, plus $20 million from Susquehanna co-founder Jeff Yass and $6 million from NYDIG founder Ross Stevens routed through his PAC, according to TradingView.

The post-November outcome remains uncertain. If Democrats retake the Senate, the Banking Committee gavel would likely go to Warren, an even sharper industry critic than Brown, according to Trending Topics. In the meantime, the SEC under Chairman Paul Atkins is pushing its own crypto rules, including a proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, but Atkins himself has acknowledged those rules can be reversed without legislation. This leaves the industry's long-term regulatory footing exactly where it was before the vote: unsettled.