A spat over college sports nearly derailed House business for the week as a trio of conservatives vented that leadership was pressing too hard for the SCORE Act, a bill that regulates pay for student-athletes.
Three House Republicans voted “no” on what ordinarily is a routine procedural vote on Tuesday afternoon, claiming that lawmakers had not been given enough opportunity to amend the bill.
The hurdle, known as a rule vote, eventually passed with the arrival of one final Republican, but not without lengthy floor conversations between Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and members of the House Freedom Caucus who appeared to be withholding their support.
“I told them the score act wasn’t where it needed to be and needed amendment,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner after the vote. “And frankly, we should be focused on affordable healthcare & housing.”
The final tally was 210-209 as Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Scott Perry (R-PA) joined Roy in voting “no.”
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Donalds pointed to comments he gave to News of the United States, saying his concern was leadership combining the SCORE Act with other unrelated bills.
“The bigger issue is, why are we jamming it all into one rule again and taking away members’ ability to make amendments on the floor?” Donalds said. “I don’t think we should be moving Heaven and Earth for the NCAA.”
The rule vote caps off a day of chaos and intraparty sniping, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also fielding upset over a long-stalled stock trading bill and rare public criticism from within the ranks of leadership.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the chairwoman of House GOP leadership, accused Johnson of stripping one of her provisions out of the annual defense bill, something he denies.
Later, Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) moved to force a vote on their stock trading legislation, using a measure that lets them end-run Johnson if they can collect 218 signatures.
The college sports legislation is expected to pass later in the week and enjoys some Democratic support, but the episode has helped rekindle conservative upset at Johnson and how he is managing the floor with razor-thin margins as speaker.
In terms of policy, House opposition to the SCORE Act centers on the belief that it would hand too much power to the NCAA and the power conferences that already attract top recruits. Its supporters frame the bill as much-needed reform that establishes rules of the road for athlete pay.
“There’s some people that have issues with the NCAA,” Scalise told reporters, according to the Hill. “They don’t want the federal government to have to get involved in this anyway.”
He downplayed the drawn-out vote as a natural byproduct of narrow GOP control of the House.
Voting against a rule was once exceedingly rare for members of the majority party, but it has increasingly become a tool of protest under Johnson and his predecessor. Burchett also opposes the SCORE Act and signaled he might have voted against the procedural step, had he known about the Freedom Caucus plan.
COLLEGE SPORTS BILL TO GET HOUSE VOTE AFTER YEARS-LONG NCAA PUSH
“I didn’t know what they were doing. I wish they’d have asked me,” Burchett said. “That’s part of the trouble with some of these guys. They always want to control things amongst themselves. And they really don’t want to win.”
“They just want to get the attention. And they didn’t win. They lost. And we’re going to have a crappy bill, and it’s going to be worse,” Burchett added.