Defiance Act Falls to 46% as House Judiciary Stalls Identical Senate-Passed Bill
H.R. 3562 has sat in committee for 10 months with no markup date, even as S. 1837 cleared the Senate unanimously on Jan. 13.
The Senate passed the Defiance Act's identical twin without a single objection on January 13, 2026. Senator Richard Durbin's S. 1837 sailed through by unanimous consent, the least contentious procedural path available in the upper chamber, and was promptly received by the House. Two and a half months later, the House version has not moved an inch.
Prediction markets on Kalshi and Polymarket now price the Defiance Act at 46% to become law by December 31, 2026, down from 56% just three days ago. That 11-percentage-point collapse is the sharpest recent move in the "Which bills will become law in 2026?" event, and it happened without a single public vote against the bill.
The Defiance Act Already Won in the Senate, So Why Are Markets Retreating?
Unanimous consent is the gold standard of non-controversy. It means every sitting senator either actively supported S. 1837 or found it too unremarkable to block. No holds, no cloture drama, no floor amendment fights. The bill simply passed.
H.R. 3562, the House companion introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on May 21, 2025, carries 54 cosponsors spanning both parties. Republican cosponsors include Representative Kat Cammack of Florida's 3rd District. Democratic cosponsors include Representatives Debbie Dingell and Ted Lieu. The bipartisan roster signals this is not a bill that divides along ideological lines.
Yet the implied probability has fallen to 46%, touching a period low of 45% before a marginal 1-percentage-point recovery. When the upper chamber has already cleared the hardest legislative hurdle with zero opposition, the question becomes specific: what exactly is the market seeing that the vote tally does not show?
What Is the Defiance Act and Why Did the Senate Pass Its Twin Without a Single Objection?
The Defiance Act targets the creation and distribution of nonconsensual deepfake imagery, establishing federal civil remedies for victims. The bill's subject matter explains the unanimous consent vote: no senator wants to be recorded as defending deepfake exploitation. That same political calculus should, in theory, apply to House members facing re-election pressures.
Unanimous consent in the Senate carries real predictive weight. Bills that clear the chamber this way face no reconciliation hurdle if the House passes identical text. S. 1837 and H.R. 3562 share the same legislative language. A House floor vote on H.R. 3562, or a direct referral of the received S. 1837, could send the bill to the President's desk without a conference committee.
The historical base rate for Senate-passed bills eventually clearing the House is meaningfully higher than for bills stuck in a single chamber. But "eventually" is doing heavy lifting in that sentence, and the market resolves on December 31, 2026, not "eventually."
The Real Risk the Market Is Pricing: House Inaction, Not Defeat
No member of House leadership has spoken against the Defiance Act. No committee vote has failed. No amendment has gutted the bill's core provisions. The Defiance Act has not been defeated; it has been ignored.
H.R. 3562 remains parked in the House Judiciary Committee as of March 28, 2026. Ten months after introduction, the bill has not received a committee markup or hearing date. The 11-percentage-point drop over the past 72 hours reflects traders recalibrating their assumptions about the House calendar. With the 119th Congress facing a crowded legislative queue, including tax reconciliation, appropriations, and debt ceiling negotiations, floor time for standalone bills is a scarce commodity.
The market is making a precise bet: the Defiance Act will die not because anyone opposes it, but because the House Judiciary Committee never schedules it and leadership never prioritizes floor time. In legislative terms, this is death by omission. Bills with strong bipartisan support expire at the end of a Congress all the time, not because they lacked the votes, but because they lacked a champion with scheduling authority.
The platform-level split reinforces this thesis. Kalshi prices the Defiance Act at 53%, while Polymarket shows 38%. That 15-percentage-point gap suggests the two platforms' user bases disagree on the probability of a late-session legislative push, not on the bill's political viability.
The Case for the Defiance Act at 46% Being Too Low
The strongest argument for buyers at current levels is the attachment strategy. Bills that cannot command their own floor time frequently hitch rides on must-pass legislation: omnibus spending packages, National Defense Authorization Acts, or end-of-session vehicles. The Defiance Act's noncontroversial profile makes it an ideal candidate for inclusion in a larger package during a lame-duck session or pre-recess push.
Fifty-four House cosponsors and a unanimous Senate vote constitute a rare legislative setup. If the House Judiciary Committee chairman decides to move the bill to markup at any point before year-end, the path from committee to law is unusually short. A single scheduling decision could reverse the entire 11-percentage-point decline in hours.
The Case Against: Why the Market Might Be Right
The counter-argument deserves genuine weight. The 119th Congress has nine months of remaining calendar, but far fewer legislative working days. The House is expected to consume the bulk of its floor schedule on budget reconciliation and must-pass fiscal legislation. Judiciary Committee bandwidth is further constrained by oversight priorities and judicial nominations.
Attachment to a larger vehicle is plausible but not guaranteed. Leadership may resist adding provisions to must-pass bills if they create political complications in other negotiations, even when the individual provision is popular. The Defiance Act's association with deepfake regulation could attract last-minute industry lobbying that quietly stalls the bill without any public opposition.
The 46% price implies roughly a coin flip, and that may be an honest reflection of a bill that has cleared every substantive hurdle except the one that matters most: getting on the House calendar. Nine months is a long time in politics, but the market is telling you that time alone is not enough.