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\n

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell on Monday said their chamber was \u201con the cusp\u201d of passing legislation to broadly regulate college athletics, but the measure\u2019s success is still unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo use a football analogy, I think we\u2019re on the one-yard line,\u201d Cruz (R-Texas) said at a joint press conference with Cantwell (D-Wash.) on the bill.<\/p>\n

The duo wants to see an initial floor vote as soon as this week, but acknowledged it could get punted to next week. The legislation could be the most significant measure the chamber passes before the midterms, but it faces opposition despite Cruz and Cantwell\u2019s latest negotiations to win bipartisan support.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was less confident Monday about the future of the bill.<\/p>\n

“We’ll see if we have 60 \u2014 I don’t know the answer for sure on that yet,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Concerns from Republicans that the legislation would pre-empt states\u2019 authority to regulate transgender athlete participation on women\u2019s sports teams have been addressed with added bill language, Cruz said.<\/p>\n

Still, some Republicans Monday expressed other doubts on the measure.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m not a real fan of that bill,” Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview, calling the legislation “way too prescriptive.”<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t think the federal government should be that involved,” he said.<\/p>\n

And the Service Employees International Union and other labor and civil rights groups made a push Monday to oppose the bill, while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) held a press conference with the AFL-CIO criticizing the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to do everything in our power \u2014 those of use who oppose this in the Senate \u2014 to ask our colleagues to step back and oppose moving this forward,\u201d Murphy said, saying the current version would \u201cpreserve a system of exploitation that is damaging our athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least one Senate Democratic aide with knowledge of ongoing negotiations granted anonymity to discuss private talks said the coalitions against the bill are only expanding despite the view presented by Cruz and Cantwell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell on Monday said their chamber was \u201con the cusp\u201d of passing legislation to broadly regulate college athletics, but the measure\u2019s success is still unclear. \u201cTo use a football analogy, I think we\u2019re on the one-yard line,\u201d Cruz (R-Texas) said at a joint press conference with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}