Two Ohio Republicans placed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on competing footings within 37 minutes of each other on Sunday, sharpening a public fight over a single freeze provision hours before the United States Senate holds its first procedural vote on the crypto market structure bill. One lawmaker set the clock. The other named the clause.
A Calendar Set, an Argument Opened
At 14:43 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on Sunday, September 13, Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio posted on X that Section 305 of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, commonly referred to as the CLARITY Act, “needs removed before passage.”
The Republican lawmaker described a 30-day pause on a suspicious transaction, extendable to 180 days on a written law-enforcement request, coupled with a good-faith safe harbor from civil lawsuits. Customers, he wrote, “may get little or no timely notice or chance to contest the freeze in court first.” He called that outcome “effectively, civil asset forfeiture.”
His closing line was quoted widely on Sunday afternoon: “The right to transact pre-dates government. It should not be infringed without due process or informed consent.”
Thirty-seven minutes later, at 15:20 GMT, Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio confirmed the vote time on X. “Tuesday at 2:15 p.m. ET, the Senate takes its first procedural vote on the Clarity Act,” he wrote. Moreno stressed the moment was not a final passage vote. The chamber, he said, would vote “to end debate on whether the United States Senate should even consider a bill to regulate digital assets.” Concerns, he added, could be raised as amendments after the chamber agrees to take the bill up.
The two Ohio Republicans are not arguing about the same object. Moreno is arguing process. Open the floor, then amend. Davidson is arguing substance. Do not send a freeze clause onto the floor if it can lock customer funds for half a year without a court order first.
What Section 305 Actually Does
Section 305 sits inside the Senate substitute text released by Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming’s office on September 10 and serves as the bill’s temporary-hold authority for certain digital asset transactions.
A “covered person,” defined to include a permitted payment stablecoin issuer, a registered foreign issuer, or a digital asset service provider, may delay execution of a transaction, conversion, or withdrawal for up to 30 calendar days.
A “qualified written request” from a covered state or federal law-enforcement agency, including the Department of the Treasury, can extend that hold by another 150 days, bringing the total window to 180 days. Good-faith compliance with the clause carries immunity from private civil suits. Participation is described in the draft as voluntary.
The bill itself is tracked as H.R. 3633 on Congress.gov, the identifier for the House-passed version now sitting in front of the Senate.
The Same Clause, Three Days Earlier
Davidson’s post did not introduce Section 305 to the public conversation. It collided with a defense already on the record.
On September 10, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, chair of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets and the bill’s lead Senate sponsor, used a fresh lawsuit against Tether, the issuer of the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT, to argue that exchanges and issuers face civil exposure when they freeze tokens on a law-enforcement tip. “Right now, exchanges and issuers can’t freeze stablecoins if they suspect illicit activity without fear of a lawsuit,” she wrote at the time, framing Section 305 as the fix.
The underlying complaint, filed August 31 in the Southern District of New York as case number 1:26-cv-07400, alleges Tether froze approximately 42.4 million USDT after an informal request from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
Sunday’s fight is therefore not a new clause. It is a public split over an old one. Lummis presents Section 305 as legal cover for freezes already occurring in the market. Davidson presents the same statutory text as a freeze mechanism that customers may not be able to challenge in court in time to matter.
Tuesday’s Vote Is a Door, Not a Law
Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota filed cloture on the motion to proceed on August 8. That motion ripens on Tuesday. Cloture on a motion to proceed requires 60 affirmative votes under Senate rules, and it would only open debate. It would not enact the legislation.
Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate. If the full conference votes yes, seven Democrats or independents would still be required to reach 60. Public counts have placed the threshold higher if one or more Republicans defect.
Read: Can the Senate Pass the CLARITY Act on September 15? Here’s the Vote Math
The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill 294 to 134 in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee advanced a companion measure 15 to 9 on May 14, 2026, with Senators Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland recorded as the only Democratic supporters.
Senator Lummis released a roughly 630-page substitute on September 10 and said it folded in more than 114 provisions requested by Democratic colleagues. The revised text added Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) registration and Bank Secrecy Act compliance for protocols that are not decentralized, narrowed portions of the language covering decentralized finance, or DeFi, and expanded credit-union authority. It left the ethics title and the stablecoin-yield compromise in place.
Ethics language remains the other live file. President Donald Trump met with advisers on Friday, September 11, about an ethics proposal tied to the bill, according to reporting by POLITICO’s Jasper Goodman. Goodman posted that account on X early Sunday and said it was unclear what came out of the discussion. No public readout of that meeting has followed.
What Happens After 2:15 p.m.
If cloture succeeds, Section 305 becomes an amendment target on the Senate floor, which is the pathway Moreno described. Davidson’s Sunday post is the first widely circulated Republican demand, two days before the vote, to strike the section outright rather than fix it during floor debate.
If cloture fails, the motion to proceed stalls. The House of Representatives has already canceled later September voting weeks, meaning any subsequent Senate product would still need House agreement, either before the midterm break or in a lame-duck session after November 3.
Sunday did not change the clock. It changed the clause that will sit on the desk when the clock starts.
Also Read: Coinbase CFO Says It Has SEC-CFTC Backup Plan if CLARITY Act Stalls
