Twelve hardline House Republicans tanked a procedural vote on Tuesday over concerns with cryptocurrency legislation the chamber is preparing to consider, bringing the floor to a standstill and dealing a blow to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and GOP leadership.
The vote on the rule — which governs debate for legislation — fell short of the majority support needed for adoption with a 196-223 tally, preventing the chamber from debating and eventually voting on legislation to fund the Pentagon for fiscal year 2026 and three cryptocurrency bills.
Republican “no” votes included Reps. Ann Paulina Luna (Fla.), Scott Perry (Pa.), Chip Roy (Texas), Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Keith Self (Texas) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.). House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) switched his vote to “no” as a procedural move to allow the chamber to re-vote on the measure at a later date.
Johnson told reporters after the vote that the hardline critics want to link the cryptocurrency bills into one product, which is why they torpedoed the procedural vote. The House this week is scheduled to vote on the GENIUS Act; negotiated by the Senate, which would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins; the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, which would lay out regulations for the broader cryptocurrency market; and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a Central Bank digital currency.
“Some members who really, really want to emphasize the House‘s product, as you know, Clarity Act, and the Anti-CBDC Act,” Johnson said. “We have our bills as well, they want to push that and merge that together. We’re trying to work with the White House and with our Senate partners on this. I think everybody is insistent that we’re gonna do all three, but some of these guys insist that it needs to be all in one package.”
Scalise moved to allow the chamber to consider the procedural rule at another time. Johnson said the House will hold another vote once there is agreement in the GOP conference.
“We’ll do what we always do around here and answer questions and work towards consensus,” Johnson said. “We expected there might be some ‘no’ votes but we thought it was important to put it on the floor and advance it because time’s of the essence.”
“So stay tuned, we’ll have lots of discussions over the next few hours and I suspect our Senate and White House friends will be engaged in those discussions as well,” he added.
House Republicans are under pressure to unfreeze the floor quickly: The Senate is on track to approve a bill to claw back $9.4 billion in federal funding, which the House needs to give a final stamp of approval to before the Friday deadline.
After the Senate passed the GENIUS Act last month, President Trump called on the House to quickly pass a “clean” stablecoin bill and send it to his desk, stymieing efforts to combine the legislation with a broader crypto framework.
Some in the House had hoped to tie the Senate’s GENIUS Act to the House’s CLARITY Act in an effort to put the lower chamber’s stamp on crypto legislation and prevent future bills from losing momentum.
House leadership appeared to have accepted they would not be able to formally tie the two bills together and instead planned to move the stablecoin and market structure legislation side by side, along with the anti-CBDC measure.
The White House and GOP leaders had initially hoped to pass both bills before Congress left for its August recess. However, they are now aiming to get the GENIUS Act across the finish line by the original August deadline before attempting to pass a market structure bill by the end of September.
The Senate has moved much slower on crypto market structure legislation, which aims to set up clear regulatory rules for the industry by divvying up oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
However, the upper chamber appears to be gearing up to move on its second key crypto bill, with both the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees holding hearings on the digital assets market. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) also suggested last Wednesday that a discussion draft of the measure could be released this week.
Updated at 3:21 p.m.
Aris Folley and Julia Shapero contributed.
