Senate presses CLARITY Act vote as digital asset debate splits parties

In a floor statement, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued the Clarity Act extends the regulatory framework established by the GENIUS Act — which he said produced a 49 percent increase in stablecoin market capitalization in 2025 — to the broader digital asset ecosystem. "Mr. President, anyone concerned about another failure like the FTX collapse a few years ago should want to see the Clarity Act pass quickly," Thune said. "This bill would prevent another FTX."

Thune credited Sens. Lummis, Scott, and Boozman with months of negotiation and said the vote would reveal whether Democrats "actually want to pass this legislation and whether or not they're willing to take yes for an answer."

Warner's statement offered the sharpest Democratic objection on the record. "I want to get to yes on responsible digital asset legislation, and no one has worked harder or spent more time engaging in good faith to try to get this done," he said. "We got close to resolving some of the toughest outstanding issues around law enforcement and national security, but ultimately, the failure to address this fundamental conflict of interest made it impossible for me to support moving forward."

Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, R-Ala., previewed the CLARITY Act in a Newsmax and NewsNation appearance, listing it alongside permitting reform and data centers as core Republican agenda items heading into the fall. "We'll be talking about the CLARITY Act, which is (about) the digital assets and the crypto space," she said.

Three senators addressed artificial intelligence Tuesday, though they arrived at sharply different conclusions about urgency and approach.

In prepared remarks at the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called AI and robotics "the most transformational technologies in the history of the world" and argued the public has had "virtually no input into the AI revolution that is transforming the world in which they are living in." Sanders warned that current AI models "can already escape human control, commit felonies by hacking into other computers and create viruses that have never been seen before."

Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, R-Ala., struck a more cautious regulatory tone. "There is no doubt that we must win the AI race … But obviously we want to make sure that these (models) are safe," she said, adding that Congress would debate "whether that could be an industry-led thing or whether there needs to be safeguards put up by Congress." She framed the competitive stakes around China: "We don't want to push those to China. We know that China is our greatest adversary, and we know that they want to make sure that we are weaker at every turn."

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., offered a physician's metaphor on a Newsmax appearance. "I'm the physician — I think this is a time to get consultations, second opinions, all those types of things as well," he said. "We don't want to strangle AI to the point that it doesn't do anybody — that it actually harms humanity."

Senate Majority Leader Thune named the farm bill as one of the session's must-act items, saying he hoped for committee action "this week as well." Thune did not specify a markup date.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said on Newsmax that Democratic opposition had stalled the bill in committee but that he was optimistic about a path forward. "We have a bill in committee in the Ag Committee — the Farm Bill — that every Democrat just voted against," Marshall said. "But now with Mitch McConnell back, I think that we have the majority numbers that we can pass that out of the Ag Committee and give those farmers the certainty, the predictability that they need as well."

Marshall also linked Democratic opposition to the farm bill directly to food-assistance policy disputes. "This is why the Democrats are refusing to do a farm bill right now. They want more fraud when it comes to food stamps and welfare, and we're not going to tolerate it," he said.

Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced the Survivor Justice Tax Prevention Act Tuesday, a bipartisan bill that would eliminate income tax on settlement payments received by sexual assault survivors who cannot show visible physical injury.

Under current IRS rules, survivors must demonstrate visible evidence of physical injury to qualify for a tax exemption on settlement funds — a standard the bill's sponsors say fails to account for the nature of sexual trauma. The legislation would instead tie the exemption to definitions of sexual act and sexual contact in the federal criminal code.

"Seeking justice as a sexual assault survivor requires enormous bravery, effort, and time," Cortez Masto said. "It's unfair that when survivors do reach a settlement, they have to pay taxes on the payments they fought so hard for unless they can show visual evidence of injury on the most private parts of their bodies."

Young framed it as a tax-code correction: "Survivors of sexual assault who have courageously sought justice should not face an additional, unfair burden from our tax code. Our bipartisan legislation will fix this injustice and ensure survivors can receive the full compensation they are owed." A companion measure passed the House unanimously in April.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., released a new Government Accountability Office report Tuesday finding that 1,719 Affordable Care Act plans covering an estimated 4.4 million individuals include elective abortion coverage in 2026 — 683 more than a comparable GAO review in 2014.

Lankford, chairman of the Senate Values Action Team, led the congressional request for the report and used its release to call on the administration to reissue the Separate Payment Rule. "As suspected, we now know that millions of Americans are forced each year to pay for elective abortion coverage that they do not want or agree with," he said. "The accounting gimmick used in Obamacare does not protect Americans who have a moral objection to paying for the taking of a child's life through elective abortion."

The release arrived 15 days before Congress marks the 50th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment on September 30. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Majority Leader Thune were among the signatories to the GAO request letter, along with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., who chairs the Senate Pro-Life Caucus.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., announced Tuesday that 20 rural hospitals in Mississippi will receive a combined $3.75 million — roughly $187,500 per facility — through the Rural Hospital Provider Assistance Program, administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Hyde-Smith, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, helped secure $24.7 million in FY2026 funding for the program nationally. She said the grants address immediate need while pointing to a structural problem Congress has not yet solved. "I encouraged providers in Mississippi to apply for these funds because I know that every little bit helps in the struggle to maintain services and keep the doors open," Hyde-Smith said. "This effort is more difficult because of structural payment disadvantages linked to Mississippi's low average wage index, which is a problem Congress must address."

Hyde-Smith has cosponsored the Save Struggling Hospitals Act (S.4233), which would codify a Medicare low-wage index policy to increase reimbursement values for hospitals in the bottom 25th percentile.

In a floor statement, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., used the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to call on colleagues to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and cosponsor her bipartisan Jewish American Security Act. Rosen is co-founder and co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism.

Rosen noted that synagogues and Jewish institutions spend, on average, $1 billion annually on security costs — a figure she said continues to rise as antisemitic incidents become more common. Her Jewish American Security Act would authorize $1 billion for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. She recently returned from Poland, where she visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers, advocates, and parents Tuesday to oppose a Department of Health and Human Services proposed rule she said would gut Head Start by removing the bulk of its regulatory standards.

In her remarks as delivered, Murray described the proposed rule as stripping "over a hundred and thirty pages of rules that help our kids stay safe and make sure they do get a quality education" — including requirements for background checks, class sizes, medical screenings, and discipline. "Trump wants to turn Head Start into a Dead End," she said.

Murray called on families to submit public comments during the ongoing comment period. She also argued the rule would push out homeless children and non-English-speaking families. "His rule will end up kicking homeless kids out of Head Start — the proposal even admits to that!" Murray said.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, praised the Senate's confirmation of Matthew Byrne as a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of Ohio on Tuesday. "Judge Byrne has devoted his entire career to vigorously defending the Constitution and tirelessly fighting for the people of Ohio," Moreno said. The Southern District Court serves more than five million citizens across 48 counties.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., announced a new multi-part project Tuesday — including speeches, videos, and a presentation — aimed at countering what he called rising support for socialism among younger Americans and laying out a roadmap on affordability.

"The generation coming of age today has inherited Washington's failures and are paying for them every day," Scott said. "They're walking into a world where the starter home their parents bought doesn't exist for them anymore. They're abandoning the idea of having children because they simply cannot afford it." Scott named New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani by name as an example of socialist political momentum he said Republicans must directly confront.

Signals

• volumeTuesday's release count of 16 ran 79 percent below the Tuesday average of 76.4 — the smallest single-day output in recent context.
• coordinatedThe Survivor Justice Tax Prevention Act drew simultaneous press releases from both lead sponsors — Cortez Masto and Young — published 44 minutes apart, consistent with a coordinated bipartisan rollout.
• coordinatedThune issued two releases within roughly four hours — a floor statement on the CLARITY Act and a leadership press conference readout — both advancing the same digital asset vote, a dual-release pattern consistent with a managed floor-day rollout.
• silent breaksSen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, has gone 63 days without a public release — an extended silence that predates his death referenced in Sen. Britt's release, which quotes him in the past tense ('Lindsey said before he passed away').
• voteA procedural cloture vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act was scheduled for the afternoon of September 15, per Thune's press conference remarks; results are not reflected in the supplied releases.
• recessThe Senate is 20 days from a pre-election state work period recess; Thune, Marshall, and Britt all framed Tuesday's activity explicitly against the approaching midterm calendar.

Quiet desks

Senators with no release in two weeks or more.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC63d
• Sen. Alan Armstrong, R-OK61d
• Sen. Roger F. Wicker, R-MS55d
• Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-MT41d
• Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY39d