Congress could decide the future of college sports

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Jan 16, 2024 View in browser   By Bianca Quilantan and Juan Perez Jr. With help from Dana Nickel  “There's a lot more clarity around where the opportunities are for congressional intervention,” Charlie Baker said. | Elise Amendola/AP RULES OF THE GAME — NCAA President Charlie Baker will return to lobby lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, roughly one year after the biggest player in college sports hired Massachusetts’ Republican former governor to protect its amateur-based business model from a cascade of lawsuits. — College leaders want Congress to preempt a battery of state laws and set national standards for the chaotic market that allows athletes to make money off their publicity rights — also known as their name, image and likeness or “NIL”. The NCAA also wants something more sweeping: A legal ban on players from being classified as school employees, plus protection from the country’s antitrust laws. — Years of intensive lobbying, multiple congressional hearings and backroom legislative debates over the NCAA’s wish list have so far failed to yield a single vote in the House or Senate. But Baker says higher education leaders and college athletics officials are making progress. — “There's a lot more clarity around where the opportunities are for congressional intervention,” Baker told POLITICO on the sidelines of the NCAA’s annual convention in Phoenix. — “We now have multiple examples of why preemption is a worthy discussion, because of not just state laws that have been enacted that create very different rules around NIL and a whole variety of other things — but you also now have multiple attorneys general who have weighed in on a variety of other policies,” Baker said. — To Baker, the disruption helps the NCAA show some evidence of how hard it is to manage a beloved national enterprise without one set of rules. Which brings us back to Congress. — A new “discussion draft” of legislation, unveiled by Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) will be the center of attention Thursday during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing that will feature testimony from Baker. The draft language would create a congressionally-appointed panel that oversees and helps enforce national rules on publicity rights deals, override state laws, establish legal cover for the NCAA and its members and bar athletes from being classified as employees. — Two congressional Democrats, Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan and Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, issued supportive statements for at least some of the ideas in the proposal. Still, the document lands atop a pile of other draft congressional plans for the future of college sports that have already exposed fault lines among lawmakers. — “As somebody who spent a bunch of time in government myself, sometimes stuff takes a long time because it takes a long time for people to figure out where the pressure points and the legitimate issues and concerns are,” Baker said. “And sometimes history or time literally starts to write a bit of a story for you about why something might be problematic. On the preemption piece in particular, and on the antitrust piece on a limited basis, there's been a lot of activity outside of Congress that would certainly lend itself to why those would be important issues to discuss.” — “The thing that you need to have most of all,” he added, “is a bunch of interested and engaged members who have committed staff time and their own time to these issues and to these discussions. And some genuine interest at the leadership level. I would argue, in the House and in the Senate, there is evidence of both.” IT’S TUESDAY, JAN. 16. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. LET’S GRAB COFFEE. Drop me a line at bquilantan@politico.com. Send tips to my colleagues Mackenzie Wilkes at mwilkes@politico.com, Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com and Michael Stratford at mstratford@politico.com. And follow us: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.   Tune in on Wednesday, Jan. 10, as POLITICO explores Taiwan's upcoming presidential election. Hear from our panel on the potential outcomes to the race and the profound implications for U.S.-China relations depending on who wins. REGISTER HERE.     Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories. Congress ANOTHER ‘LADDERED’ CR — Lawmakers on Sunday unveiled their bill text of a stopgap funding patch that would push government funding deadlines until March, POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the measure will give Republicans more time to “complete what House Republicans are working hard to achieve: an end to governance by omnibus, meaningful policy wins, and better stewardship of American tax dollars.” — Under the bill, funding would expire on: March 1 for Military Construction-VA, Agriculture-FDA, Transportation-HUD and Energy-Water. And March 8 for Financial Services, Legislative Branch, Commerce-Justice-Science, Homeland Security, Defense, Interior-Environment, State-Foreign Operations and Labor-HHS-Education. — Federal funding runs out at midnight Friday for the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Transportation and Energy, and Housing and Urban Development. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a statement said the Senate would launch on the process to clear the stopgap starting on Tuesday. A shutdown is still likely if leaders in both chambers can’t get enough bipartisan support to clear the legislation this week. HOUSE RULES TAKES UP ‘PREGNANT STUDENTS’ RIGHTS’ — The committee will meet at 4 p.m. to create a rule for the “Pregnant Students’ Rights” Act, H.R. 6914 (118), a measure that would require colleges to advise pregnant students of their rights, required accommodations and other services. Republicans cleared the bill out of the House Education and the Workforce Committee last week without any support from Democrats. — Democrats expressed concern over protecting a student’s right to choose an abortion and slammed the bill as an opportunity for Republicans to score political points with their base. They also criticized the bill for leaving out resources on sexual and reproductive health, including access to contraception or an abortion. — Pregnant and parenting students are already protected under Title IX, the federal law that bars sex-based discrimination. The Biden administration’s proposed rule, which is expected to be finalized by March, also clearly outlines that schools must have “reasonable modifications for students, reasonable break time for employees for lactation and lactation space for both students and employees.” Higher Education CAMPUS PUSHBACK — Indiana University at Bloomington suspended a professor after a Palestine Solidarity Committee event on the Israel-Hamas war for what the university said is a breach in procedure. — Associate professor of political science and Middle Eastern studies Abdulkader Sinno was suspended after helping the student group host the event on Nov. 16, 2023. The public event featured Miko Peled, an Israeli-American activist for peace who has been critical of Israel. Sinno — who The Herald-Times reported is the faculty adviser for PSC — filed a room reservation request on Nov. 6, 2023, for the event. — According to Indiana Daily Student, Sinno requested the room for the event, and it was approved. But Sinno canceled it after being told he made a mistake on the form. — After the cancellation, PSC submitted their own request, which was denied by IU due to short notice and the determination that security would be needed for the event. IDS reported that the group continued with their event. American Association of University Professors' IU chapter said a complaint was filed against Sinno by IU’s associate vice president of public safety the next day. — “It is the university’s practice not to comment on individual personnel matters,” an IU spokesperson said in a statement. “However, in determining common sanctions, it is uniform practice for the chief academic affairs officer to consider the facts of a given case, in addition to prior or repeat patterns of behavior or misconduct.”   GLOBAL PLAYBOOK IS TAKING YOU TO DAVOS! Unlock the insider's guide to one of the world's most influential gatherings as POLITICO's Global Playbook takes you behind the scenes of the 2024 World Economic Forum. Author Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground in the Swiss Alps, bringing you the exclusive conversations, shifting power dynamics and groundbreaking ideas shaping the agenda in Davos. Stay in the know with POLITICO's Global Playbook, your VIP pass to the world’s most influential gatherings. SUBSCRIBE NOW.     Syllabus — The next battle in higher ed may strike at its soul: Scholarship: The New York Times — Harvard may keep Garber in presidency ‘for years’: Times Higher Education — Under Republican bill, voters would elect Kentucky Board of Education members in partisan races: Louisville Public Media — How college-educated Republicans learned to love Trump again: The New York Times — Iowa principal who was hailed a hero in Perry High School shooting dies of injuries: CNN   Follow us on Twitter Delece Smith-Barrow @DeleceWrites Michael Stratford @mstratford Bianca Quilantan @biancaquilan Juan Perez Jr. @PerezJr Mackenzie Wilkes @macwilkes   Follow us

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