PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire — It turns out the U.S. House of Representatives will not jump through hoops to vote on Sen. Ted Cruz’s college sports bill during the campaign season. After the midterms, the House might even try to call some audibles with the legislation.
The Texas Republican has been adamant the House could come back before the elections and quickly pass the Protect College Sports Act (or PCSA). But House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told The Washington Sun in an interview on Wednesday the House has a different plan that could include changes to Cruz’s proposal, which passed the Senate Monday with a large bipartisan majority.
“There’s some good elements in the bill, but you saw there were some other problems that a number of our chairmen of the committees of jurisdiction in the House have with that bill, that would need to be fixed,” Scalise said. “Look, we’ve got our own process. We want to make sure we get this right, because it’s really important that we allow the schools to govern themselves.”
Without delving into specifics, the Louisiana lawmaker said that while there are “differences between the House and the Senate” versions of the legislation, “there’s a path to get a final bill to the president’s desk, which is what we ultimately want.”
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The differences are likely going to be “addressed in some amendments that will keep the focus of the bill on letting the schools govern themselves,” he said.
“That’s what brought us all to the table,” Scalise said. “Have strong antitrust protections for schools to be able to govern themselves, so that courts don’t overrule the decisions made by the schools, and you have people playing in their fifth and sixth and seventh year at their fourth school. And they’re not getting an education because they’re not even getting transferable credits. I mean, nobody wants that. We can fix it, and we’re going to.”
A main function of the PCSA is that it would grant the NCAA and its sports conferences antitrust protection to set rules on athlete compensation, eligibility and the transfer portal. If the House were to change the bill through the amendment process in the lame-duck session after the midterms, it would have to go back to the Senate, further complicating its chance of passage.
There’s also no guarantee the House could pass any version of this bill, which Cruz co-authored with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington). Over the course of the past year, House leadership has had to pull their version of name, image and likeness legislation — known as the SCORE Act — from the floor due to opposition that would’ve tanked the bill. The PCSA would likely face a similar fate as written.
A source with knowledge of the matter told The Sun that a main issue the House GOP Conference has with the bill is that it does not prevent athletes from gaining employee status, which some Republicans believe could lead to unionization.
The SCORE Act barred college athletes from becoming employees, which has long been a goal of the NCAA. The PCSA, however, is neutral on employment, even if labor advocates believe its antitrust protections for the NCAA and conferences would stunt future organizing efforts.
In June, right after the PCSA was first introduced in the Senate, Scalise told Politico: “For the House to be able to take anything up, you got to prevent employment status of the student athletes.”
Another issue Republicans in the conference have with the PCSA is that it doesn’t impose limits on athletic scholarships for international athletes, the source added. Earlier this month, Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) introduced a bill that would cap the number of roster spots each college team could offer to international athletes at 20%. Walberg chairs the House’s Education and Workforce Committee, which was very involved in crafting the SCORE Act in 2025.
If House Republicans insist on adding an employment ban to this bill, that could affect support among Democrats in the Senate. Cantwell fought hard for the PCSA to avoid the employment question, according to multiple Senate aides familiar with the negotiations. The talks included months of discussions between Cantwell and Cruz, plus Sens. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Chris Coons (D-Delaware), who are both co-sponsors. And along with Coons, Cantwell built a strong coalition of Democrats for the PCSA, getting 27 yeses from her party in the final vote Monday. (The overall tally was 77-22.)
To support the bill, those Democrats all broke with the AFL-CIO, which vehemently opposes the legislation. A full-on employment restriction, though, would conceivably be a no-go for many Democratic backers.
Employment isn’t the only issue the House could take a closer look at.
The PCSA’s provisions on conference expansion and realignment have also raised concern, particularly among Senators and House members from Florida. Those politicians are generally trying to make it so schools such as Florida State and the University of Miami maintain the flexibility to switch conferences if the opportunity arises in the near future.
It is already a sprawling bill, up to 180 pages after the Senate added amendments before the final vote. Shortly after it passed, Tim Buckley, the NCAA’s senior vice president for external affairs, sent a memo to schools, which The Sun obtained. The message was for school leaders to keep the pressure on their senators and representatives to push the PCSA through the House.
“Over the next few weeks, your continued advocacy is essential to keep up the momentum,” Buckley wrote. “The message is clear: Pass the PCSA as drafted as soon as possible. Amending the bill at this point would almost certainly make it impossible to get it to the President’s desk this Congress.”
But, as Scalise described, the House likely plans to take its turn with the ball first.
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