Cruz wants Republicans to campaign on college sports bill
Semafor ·
The GOP senator said he and Trump are leaning on the House to return and pass the measure before the midterms.
Once the Senate passes the bipartisan college sports bill, Ted Cruz wants the Republicans to quickly turn it into a midterms victory by reconvening the House to pass the bill, having President Donald Trump sign it on live TV, and then campaigning on it.
The House left for campaign season in mid-September, but the Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee said he’s “energetically” making the case to Speaker Mike Johnson to pass the bill before the election. The Protect College Sports Act is scheduled to clear the Senate on Monday night and Cruz said he’s had “productive” conversations with Johnson. “President Trump has been quite vocal that he believes the House should come back,” Cruz said, referring to Trump’s recent remarks predicting Johnson would bring the House back.
“I believe the speaker will call the House back and pass this bill, and the House could pass the bill in a day,” Cruz told Semafor in an interview on Monday. “I believe the speaker will do that, and I urge President Trump to sign the bill on the set of College Game Day at a game this fall. And I believe we will see this bill signed into law before Election Day.”
To be sure, pushing the House to return to Washington in the middle of the critical period before the midterms represents a huge challenge from Cruz to the other chamber of Congress, which often complains that the Senate can’t process House-passed bills. But Cruz said he’s told Johnson his proposal could be an electoral boon and that “there are very few things that are more productive for his members to be doing on the campaign trail than for them to come back to DC for 24 hours and come together to pass a big bipartisan victory on a topic that millions of Americans care passionately about.”
Johnson sent House Republicans home on Sept. 16, but the speaker has generally been more open to bringing the House back on short notice to address time-sensitive legislation. Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, who is running for the Senate, is calling for the House to come back to address high fuel prices but there’s no sign yet that the chamber would reconvene briefly for a vote on that — let alone the college sports bill, for that matter.
Notably, though, the House’s own efforts to address Name, Image and Likeness in college sports have stalled out. The speaker’s office did not comment on Cruz’s remarks.
As the Senate looks to close out its September session, some Republicans are quietly grumbling that the sports bill does nothing to address voters’ larger concerns about affordability and cost-of-living issues. But citing “overwhelming” support within the Senate and from groups outside it, Cruz said “the colleagues who are criticizing are mostly fringe positions that are throwing rocks at this point.” If signed into law, he argued, the college sports bill would “absolutely” be beneficial for Republicans trying to defend their control of Congress.
Cruz argued that many regular Americans would appreciate a new law that codifies restrictions to the student athletes’ transfer portal, governs the amount colleges can spend paying athletes, and caps conference expansion.
“Many don’t really care a lot about politics, but care deeply about college sports, and a whole lot of voters may go: ‘I’ll be damned, these guys can actually get something done.’ And I think that that is a very strong message going into election day,” Cruz said. “The way you win elections is by winning meaningful victories that make a difference in the lives of your constituents, and this bill does exactly that.”
Cruz said it’s still possible the Senate will vote on changes to the bill before passing it, although time is running short. Regardless, he said that on Monday evening — amendments or not — the Senate will send the House the bill “with a big bipartisan vote.”