Congress

Senators think they hold the key to a college athletics bill demanded by Trump

Published

3 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

After House talks imploded this week over the fate of a college athletics bill, senators now believe they have the upper hand in shaping a sweeping package that would enact new rules for a multibillion-dollar industry that has been destabilized by years of political and legal battles.

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, have been spending hours every day for the past week at the negotiating table.

“Both of us, I believe, want to get to ‘yes,’” Cruz said in an interview Tuesday. “There’s a real crisis in college sports and if Congress doesn’t act, we are going to see continued damage.”

Cantwell, in a separate interview Tuesday, agreed talks were progressing: “Everybody’s working hard.”

It would be a major achievement if Cruz and Cantwell can land a deal that their House counterparts have repeatedly fumbled. The stakes are especially high for Cruz, who still isn’t ruling out a presidential bid in 2028 and has sought to use his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee to flex his policy chops.

The two senators also would solve a dilemma for Congress, which is being called upon by President Donald Trump and sports officials to pass legislation that would set new limits for how athletes can be paid for their name, image and likeness.

Colleges and universities have been lobbying lawmakers for years to preempt a patchwork of competing state laws governing compensation of student athletes, which is increasingly difficult to manage.

“College sports have been an incredible avenue for millions of young men and women to get scholarships, to go to college, to get an education, to build life skills,” said Cruz, but all that is in “in jeopardy right now” as higher education lacks a fair and consistent set of standards.

“The current path is unsustainable,” he added.

But it remains to be seen exactly how the senators will square their own policy differences — or craft a proposal that would pass muster in the House and avoid the same pitfalls that doomed efforts in that chamber.

“I hope there’s a landing spot,” Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said Tuesday of Cruz and Cantwell’s efforts.

He also acknowledged there remained sticking points that still needed to be hammered out, including how to address whether “student athletes are the employees of the universities and colleges, or not, and the question of unionization.”

For months, House GOP leaders have been looking to build enough support for their own legislative solution to this problem, the so-called SCORE Act. They had to pull the bill from the floor last December amid various complaints from hard-liners, including from Rep. Byron Donalds, a gubernatorial candidate in Florida who doesn’t think regulating the college sports industry is the job for Congress.

Since that time, leaders have been working to overcome opposition on their side of the aisle, including by offering concessions to conservative holdouts like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on matters like coach salaries and recruitment requirements.

Leaders planned to put a revamped SCORE Act back on the House floor this week, believing they were close to reaching necessary consensus — but other Freedom Caucus members wouldn’t commit to supporting a procedural vote to advance it.

At the same time, the entire Congressional Black Caucus announced Monday night it would boycott a package “benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent” amid efforts by red states to redraw congressional maps and eliminate majority-minority districts across the South.

That meant two original Democratic cosponsors — CBC Reps. Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Shomari Figures of Alabama — would no longer support the legislation.

A House Democratic aide granted anonymity to share private deliberations said that Republican leaders were relying on only a handful of Democratic votes to try to pass the bill this week after changes to the legislation tilted it farther to the right. The CBC’s blanket opposition killed those chances.

Republican leaders also lost Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former college volleyball player who had been trying to negotiate with Republicans but was unhappy with where they landed. She declared on a press call Tuesday that the SCORE Act as currently written “bails out the NCAA and the Power Two conferences by silencing athletes and rolling back the rights that they fought so hard to win.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in an interview last week stressed last-minute changes were possible, like with any big bill, and that “it’s taken months to build this coalition.”

A Scalise spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday.

Back in the Senate, there’s no guarantee Cantwell and Cruz’s efforts won’t also be overtaken by political pressures related to the redistricting wars — or that the two lawmakers will be able to bridge their own differences. Both were tight-lipped about the status of their discussions Tuesday and where their visions might diverge.

Cantwell said she’s pushing provisions that would protect student athletes and expand revenue for schools of all sizes — provisions from her bill known as the SAFE Act, which would promote women’s and Olympic sports and help smaller schools compete with the traditional sports powerhouses.

It’s unclear whether Republicans will agree to incorporate these ideas but Cruz on Tuesday suggested he was sympathetic to the underlying concerns.

“Women’s sports is in jeopardy, Olympics sports is in jeopardy, and most schools are hemorrhaging cash,” he said. “I believe Congress should act, and I believe we will act.”

One thing Cantwell did make clear is that no matter what proposal she and Cruz come up with, it shouldn’t be associated with the House’s product that’s been so mired in drama.

“It’s definitely not a companion bill,” Cantwell said.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

House Oversight requests Alan Dershowitz testify in Epstein probe

Published

18 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Oversight Committee requested that Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer who once represented Jeffery Epstein, testify as part of its investigation into the federal government’s handling of the Epstein files.

The interview is tentatively slated for 10 a.m. on July 9, with a video and transcript of the testimony being released “as expeditiously as practical,” Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote in a letter to Dershowitz on Friday.

“Due to public reporting, documents released by the Department of Justice, documents obtained by the Committee, and your former role as Mr. Epstein’s attorney, the Committee believes you have information that will assist in its investigation,” Comer wrote.

Comer told reporters on Wednesday that he wanted to hear from Dershowitz, who helped Epstein secure a controversial plea deal in his 2008 sex abuse case.

“I’m looking forward to testifying,” Dershowitz wrote in a text message to Blue Light News on Friday, adding that he is “trying to adjust my schedule” for July 9.

Congress

Cornyn tells Mike Lee to lay off John Thune

Published

20 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. John Cornyn isn’t a card-carrying member of the Senate GOP’s growing YOLO caucus. But with less than seven months left in office after losing his primary, the Texas Republican appears to be feeling newly free to speak his mind.

The latest clap-back came Thursday night and the early hours of Friday morning, when Cornyn called a conservative influencer a “grifter” and told Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on social media to stop publicly blaming fellow Republicans — including Senate Majority Leader John Thune — for the fact that the GOP elections bill doesn’t have support to pass inside the party.

“You don’t have the votes” for the SAVE America Act, Cornyn posted on X. “@LeaderJohnThune can’t change that. It is math.”

He was directing his comments at Lee, who had just penned a post telling Thune, “let’s do this!”

Cornyn continued, “Try focusing on Democrats instead of Republicans. Republican on Republican attacks are hurting our chances to win the majority in November.”

Lee responded to ask, “on what planet is this an attack on Republicans?” and appeared to suggest a staffer was tweeting on Cornyn’s behalf: “Once my friend John Cornyn realizes that you’re saying this in his name—whoever you are—I don’t think he’ll be happy with you.”

Cornyn, however, is known for posting himself on his social media accounts in a chamber where many Senate accounts are run solely by staff. And he’s been making it clear all week that he will push back on Trump and his party when he thinks it’s needed.

In multiple conversations with reporters in the Capitol, Cornyn said that Republicans need to “stop the circular firing squad.” And he added that he won’t intentionally be “a thorn in [Trump’s] side,” but he’s also “not going to go out of my way to try to appease him.”

“I want him to succeed, I want the Republican Party to succeed, I want the country to succeed,” Cornyn said this week. “But on a case-by-case basis, when I think there’s been overreach or just a bad idea, I’m not going to hesitate to weigh in.”

The four-term senator’s comments come after he lost his primary last month to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed in the final days of the runoff.

Cornyn said in an interview with The New York Times that he was not a “wounded bear” but that he believed Trump’s insistence on “slavish adherence” was going to backfire for Republicans in the midterms and result in “the most miserable two years of his life” if Democrats flip the House or Senate.

“I think it is going to be a pretty bumpy ride for the next seven months,” Cornyn said.

Congress

Capitol agenda: What Schumer told us about AI

Published

1 day ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Chuck Schumer wants Congress to pass AI legislation. But he’s casting doubt on it happening this year.

“In this Congress, it’s hard,” the Senate minority leader said in an interview Thursday.

Schumer’s reality check isn’t a complete door-slam. But it underscores the steep climb lawmakers face to bridge a slew of intra-party and inter-chamber divides about what Washington’s approach should be toward the emerging opportunities and risks from the rapidly developing technology.

The problems are multi-pronged.

The White House, whose posture toward AI has shifted dramatically in recent weeks, is angling to enact legislation that would preempt state laws in favor of a national standard. Most recently, administration officials have been exploring a plan to attach preemption legislation to bills designed to shore up kids’ safety online. But there are issues — House Republicans aren’t in love with the Senate GOP’s kid safety bills and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has warned that many senators have concerns “about not trampling states’ rights in the process.”

Democrats aren’t unified on what to do next, with the public broadly skeptical about AI.

Some House and Senate Democrats are leery of state preemption and want to wait until next year to tackle AI, when they might be in power. Opposition from key Democrats is a major factor derailing an attempt by Reps. Lori Trahan and Jay Obernolte to strike a deal on legislation that would set nationwide safety and transparency rules while restricting state action. And Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have proposed a moratorium on AI data centers pending stricter government oversight.

Schumer is striking a balanced tone on how to proceed, arguing that there are “tremendous benefits” from AI but that “we also have to have guardrails.”

“We should get something done on AI, and it’s … got to be balanced — keep innovation strong, but have guardrails to prevent the dangers,” he said. “That’s a hard needle to thread, but I would very much like to see that get done the sooner the better.”

What else we’re watching:

— FISA LAPSE, CLAYTON NOMINATION: Thune is vowing to move “fairly quickly” to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, with the FISA Section 702 spy authority set to lapse at midnight thanks to a stalemate between Democrats and the White House over the position.

— GOP ADVANCES BIG DEFENSE BOOST — Republicans have taken the first steps toward granting President Donald Trump’s request for the largest budget ever for the Pentagon. Senate Armed Services members on Thursday approved a draft of their annual defense authorization bill outlining priorities for $1.14 trillion in defense spending next year. The House Appropriations defense subcommittee advanced $1.1 trillion in fiscal 2027 funding for the Defense Department in a closed-door markup.

Calen Razor and Connor O’Brien contributed reporting.