College sports bill could override state restrictions on transgender athletes, Utah AG warns

SALT LAKE CITY — A major bill seeking to regulate college sports hit a roadblock in the Senate last week despite lawmakers racing to have the framework approved before leaving Washington for a scheduled five-week recess.

The long-stalled Protect College Sports Act, which would establish federal regulations for name, image and likeness deals for student-athletes, was injected with sudden momentum last week — but that progress quickly sputtered out as the week came to a close. Among other concerns, some lawmakers raised objections that the bill could create legal loopholes in states that have laws restricting transgender athletes from participating in women's sports.

A group of attorneys general from six red states, including Attorney General Derek Brown, wrote a letter to the two main sponsors of the bill to urge changes before it's brought to the floor for a vote.

"For decades, the integrity of women's sports has been under attack by those pursuing a radical transgender agenda at the expense of the safety of female athletes and equal athletic opportunity," the state attorney general wrote in the letter, which was sent to lawmakers on Friday and obtained by the Deseret News.

The Protect College Sports Act is a sweeping proposal to regulate college athletics by creating a national framework dealing with name, image and likeness deals, athlete compensation, media rights, revenue sharing, transfer eligibility, and more. Bipartisan lawmakers behind the legislation have argued federal guidelines are crucial to alleviate confusion from 50 states operating under different rules.

As part of that framework, the legislation offers requirements for student-athletes to be considered eligible to participate in NCAA Division I or Division II athletic competitions. The legislation then blocks states from enforcing laws that interfere with those guidelines, raising concerns from Republican-led states with laws restricting transgender athletes.

Instead, attorneys general such as Brown are pushing the Senate to include language "to make clear that the bill does not preempt the 27 state laws that prohibit biological males from participating in women's sports."

Without that language, the attorneys general argue, the bill is "unacceptably unclear" and could "risk re-opening the floodgates of litigation on the question whether states can ensure women's sports are for women and women only."

"Given what's at stake — the integrity of women's sports, the safety of female athletes, and basic biological reality — and the tenacity of the left in pushing a radical transgender agenda that harms our young women and families, we cannot afford to roll the dice and put our trust in the federal courts to properly construe these ambiguities in this bill in a way that does not preempt our states' women's sports laws," the letter states. "Our states have invested too much in this fight only to have the outcome once again put into doubt."

A trio of senators — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jim Banks of Indiana and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama — filed an amendment last week addressing these concerns. Each of the three states has laws that prohibit biological males from competing in women's sports.

The amendment has not yet been considered, as Senate GOP leaders delayed the bill's consideration until September. Despite striking a deal last week between the Senate, the White House, and Big Ten and Southeastern Conference leaders, the Senate ultimately adjourned for its August recess before taking a vote on the reforms package.

That delay came after a handful of lawmakers objected to the expedited timeline or others wanted to file their own amendments — which could've taken days to conclude debate. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., placed the bill on the calendar for September.

"College sports is something that needs to be fixed. They have a good solution," Thune said on Friday. "We got it teed up for next month."

Even if the bill makes it through the Senate, it must still be approved by the House, which has been struggling to draft its own solution to regulate college sports. As a result, it's unclear if Congress will be able to pass a federal framework before the midterm elections in November.

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