House Republican leaders have once again scrubbed plans to vote on legislation that would usher in substantial changes to college sports, leaving an uncertain path ahead.
Attention is now turning to the Senate, where Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., are reportedly preparing their own bipartisan proposal to address a landscape transformed by name, image and likeness deals.
It comes after an initial version of the House bill, known as the SCORE Act, was pulled from the floor in December. In the months since, GOP leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have worked behind the scenes to assuage concerns from Republican and Democratic members.
But those efforts weren’t enough, and on Monday afternoon, the influential Congressional Black Caucus announced all its members were “united” in opposing the revised bill.
“For generations, Black athletes have helped build college athletics into one of the most powerful and profitable industries in American life,” the group’s chair, Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “Yet at the very moment those same communities face coordinated attacks on their democratic representation, too many leaders across college athletics have chosen silence.”
