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Congressional Daily Record
This section covers nominations, confirmations, or other executive branch business. It mentions members such as Maria E. Cantwell.
Official title: Protect College Sports Act (Executive Calendar)
Issued
September 15, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMs. CANTWELL. Mr. President, there is a lot to say in a short period of time, but we will be having a vote soon to move to proceed to the Protect College Sports Act, a bill that does deserve the attention of this institution.
There are lots of things I would like to focus on. I didn't necessarily call the shot that we were having this vote, but, I will tell you, it is definitely worth proceeding to.
bipartisan basis with a variety of Members on both sides of the aisle and working with universities across the United States in every conference and thousands of athletes who want to have a better system.
decades, he worked at the intersection of sports and politics, entertainment, community engagement, and business. He serves as the vice chair of the National Urban League board of trustees, a board member of the National Action Network, and a former board member of the NAACP.
yesterday—are his own. So I am quoting from him in his letter:
College sports are in a free fall, and everyone inside the
game knows it. Universities are borrowing and spending tens
of millions just to keep up, while nonrevenue, women's and
Olympic sports are cut to feed football and men's basketball.
Courts, not campuses, increasingly decide who plays and
where. Smaller schools have become unpaid development leagues
for the giants.
I have spent my [whole] career on both sides of a table
that rarely agree, as the founder of a sports agency
representing athletes, including a No. 1 overall NFL draft
pick, and as a graduate of Morehouse College who loves our
historically Black institutions. From both chairs, I can tell
you the status quo is unsustainable, and the Protect College
Sports Act is the best chance we have to fix it.
Let me say something my former colleagues will not like.
The agent world around these young athletes is largely
unregulated, and too much of it preys on the very [young]
kids it claims to serve. In the pros, agent fees are capped
around 5%; in college, some agents reportedly take 20-25% of
an athlete's NIL deal. Others push players into the transfer
portal chasing an offer that never comes, and more than 40%
of transfers each year risk losing their scholarships and
support. I know this business. It is not built around the
best interests of student-athletes, and this bill finally
brings order to it.
The legislation sets national rules everyone plays by. It
protects Olympic and nonrevenue sports, invests in women's
athletics, strengthens health and safety, safeguards
scholarships, and creates real accountability for schools and
athletes alike. And it directs nearly a billion dollars over
the next six years into HBCUs, through the IGNITE investment
in HBCU sports, media, journalism and broadband. It is why
the United Negro College Fund and the Thurgood Marshall
College Fund, along with more than 360 schools and every
major conference, support it. At a place like Morehouse, home
to a sports-journalism program founded with Spike Lee, that
money is generational.
I do not dismiss the people opposing this bill; several are
friends and allies. The NAACP and the Congressional Black
Caucus have tied it to the fight over Black voting power. Let
me be clear: Voting rights are sacred, and I will stand in
that fight with anyone. But I cannot agree that the way to
wage it is to hold thousands of student-athletes'
scholarships, health protections and futures hostage to a
Supreme Court decision they did not make. Let us fight for
voting rights with everything we have, and let us not make
these young people the collateral.
The other objection, pressed by organized labor, is that
collective bargaining should fix all of this. I wish it were
that simple. More than 80% of Division I schools are public
institutions, and their athletes would be state employees,
outside the reach of federal labor law and, in many states,
barred from bargaining at all. A national bargaining system
would require reopening New Deal-era statutes this Congress
is not going to touch.
Meanwhile, the protections in this bill are real, and they
are available now.
Is the bill perfect? No. I would still press the House for
full funding for the HBCU investment, not a promise on paper.
But I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the essential.
This is the last, best chance to save college sports and to
put HBCUs at the table where the future gets decided.
I have negotiated against institutions, and for the people
they overlooked. From both chairs, the answer here is the
same. Pass the Protect College Sports Act, in the Senate this
fall and in the House right behind it. Student-athletes need
protection, universities need a sustainable system, and our
HBCUs deserve this investment. The time to act is now.
Mr. President, this letter that I just read from Lamell McMorris I think is a representative of all the issues combined in this legislation. I can just tell you that the unsustainable 300-percent increase in recruiting student-athletes without the proper rules and regulations is bankrupting our higher education system. Taxpayers are asked to foot the bill in higher tuition fees that students pay who are not even athletes. They are going to State legislatures and asking for bailouts, and they are using university funds that should go to research and putting them, instead, into what is an arms race.
and it sets up a commission to look at the real future, which I think should include collective bargaining, for what college sports can be organized in the future.
risk—because thousands of them have already been cut from the system— are just going to continue to see failure.
The other night, I talked to the Pac-12 commissioner, who said: I just met with all the student-athletes in the Pac-12.
I said: No. What?
They wanted to know whether their sport was still going to be there.
the Olympics, and we are not going to be winning gold or silver or bronze because we are not going to have the athletes because the collegiate system will have collapsed, and people won't be funding them because they will be in an arms race over football.
sharing, and that this bill will put that into law for the first time— the first-time athletes will get a Federal preemption on NIL rights and revenue sharing that will be historic. Let's move forward.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, today, the Senate has an opportunity to do something that doesn't happen nearly enough in Washington. Republicans and Democrats can come together, solve a real problem, and protect an American institution that millions of people love.
College sports today are in crisis. For years, court decisions, litigation, conflicting State laws, unlimited transfers, eligibility issues, and inconsistent enforcement have chipped away at the foundation of college athletics. The result is what we are seeing right now: the Wild West.
season. Athletes don't know what rules will govern them, coaches don't know what rosters will look like from one year to the next, and schools don't know what rules they can legally enforce. And fans are watching traditions and rivalries disappear—traditions and rivalries that have existed for generations. Doing nothing is not an option.
bring order to that chaos. And let me be clear about what this bill does: It protects the rights of student-athletes to earn money from their name, image, and likeness. It establishes clear, enforceable rules governing eligibility and transfers. It provides important protections for athletes, and it protects scholarships. It protects women's sports and Olympic sports from being sacrificed in an unchecked spending arms race. It protects rivalries and traditions that make college sports unlike anything else in the world. And it gives the limited legal certainty needed to actually enforce the rules.
The bill doesn't turn back the clock. The NIL era is here, and student-athletes deserve the opportunity to benefit from their talent and hard work.
That is the fundamental question before the Senate today: Do we want college sports to have clear national enforceable rules or do we want another decade of lawsuits, conflicting State laws, bidding wars, roster chaos, and uncertainty?
pay the price if Congress fails to act aren't the highly paid coaches or conference commissioners. They are the young men and women whose sports don't generate millions of dollars in television revenue. They are the swimmers and the wrestlers and the gymnasts and the rowers and the volleyball players and the track athletes and the thousands of other student athletes whose opportunities depend upon a healthy college athletic system.
will give them the opportunity to earn a college degree. And they are the fans who want their kids and grandkids to inherit the rivalries they grew up loving.
This legislation isn't perfect. No bipartisan legislation is. Senator Cantwell and I both compromised to get here. But Senator Cantwell and I, along with many other Senators from both sides of the aisle, have spent months listening to student-athletes, to coaches, to universities, to conferences, to Olympic leaders, to professional sports organizations, and to fans. We found common ground, and now it is time to act.
were in fourth down territory. Well, the ball is now on the Senate floor. There is no more time to punt. We can sit on the sidelines and watch college sports continue to unravel or we can step onto the field and lead.
Protect College Sports Act. Listen to the 29 conferences that have endorsed this bill. Listen to the more than 370 universities that have endorsed this bill. Listen to the historically Black colleges and universities that are begging the Senate to pass this bill. Listen to the United Negro College Fund that has endorsed this bill. Listen to the Thurgood Marshall scholarship fund that has endorsed this bill.
Baseball, of the National Hockey League. It has the support of the NBA Players Association and the NFL Players Association. It has the enthusiastic support of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
college athletes who are competing right now, because, if the Senate doesn't act, hundreds of thousands of those students will see their roster slots go away and their scholarships go away.
their future. Let's come together and demonstrate that the Senate— Republicans and Democrats working together—can lead and protect an institution that is unique and valuable. That is college sports in America.