Senate Republicans say getting consent to move forward on the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill to set rules for compensating and recruiting college athletes, is holding up a broader deal on funding the government, confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general and starting the five-week Senate recess.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) told GOP colleagues at a lunch meeting Friday that he views the college sports bill — which has been dubbed the “NIL bill” because it would set standards for using athletes’ name, image and likeness — as the “chokepoint” for getting a deal done to fund the government and start the August recess, according to a source familiar with the internal meeting.
A senior Senate GOP aide confirmed there’s agreement on voting on everything on Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-S.D.) to-do list, but there are about 10 holds on the college sports bill.
Senate GOP leaders circulated a “hotline” alert on Friday afternoon proposing votes to amend the continuing resolution funding government to strip out a controversial hemp-related provision, to pass the continuing resolution itself and to confirm Blanche as attorney general, as well as votes on a motion to proceed to the college sports bill.
Under the proposed hotline, the Senate would then vote on the college sports bill itself if the motion to proceed to it is successful.
The proposed list of actions also includes a test vote on proceeding to a Senate budget resolution, which is expected to fail, and a vote on a measure sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) requiring photo identification to vote in federal elections.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is pushing hard to vote on the college sports bill before the Senate leaves for a five-week August recess, but he’s running into opposition, which could scuttle getting an agreement to sequence the final series of votes before the recess.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said the proposed regulations for college sports are “complicated” and he would be happy to spend more time on the bill before voting on it.
“It’s complicated, there are a lot of pieces to this. I’m OK with waiting,” he said.
Warnock held up action on a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill earlier this week until he got an assurance from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to put some guardrails on President Trump’s expanded tariff authority under the bill.
Thune acknowledged getting agreement on the college sports bill is an obstacle to wrapping up the Senate’s work before the recess.“NIL is an issue that we got to get better clarity on to lock down an agreement. It’s part of the endgame,” Thune said.
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