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ISSUE DU JOUR

What NCAA President Charlie Baker wants Congress to do on NIL

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing today on “name, image and likeness” – the NCAA standard that allows athletes to earn money while playing college sports.

NIL is a huge issue in college athletics. And it’s getting plenty of attention this week, with the Final Four kicking off Saturday in Houston. Go UConn Huskies, by the way.

The ability for college athletes to get paid while they compete has changed the landscape of amateur athletics. Yet as of now, the NIL outlook is the Wild Wild West in many ways. Athletes have just started to earn money and universities are grappling with setting up programs and instituting standards.

Charlie Baker, the former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, recently took the helm of the NCAA. Baker won’t be testifying at the E&C hearing today, but he expects to in the near future. We spent some time speaking with Baker Tuesday about what he wants to see Congress do in the NIL space.

Baker said he has gotten an “enormous amount of incoming” from Capitol Hill about NIL since becoming NCAA president earlier this month. We’ve seen Baker on the Hill numerous times recently. He’s met with members of both parties and leadership about NIL and other issues.

Baker’s top priority in the NIL space is to have Congress pass a law to create transparency in the contracting process. He wants lawmakers to institute a “uniform standard contract” for student athletes to use when they sign an NIL deal – not dissimilar from a mortgage contract.

Baker also wants a public “registry of NIL agreements” to shine light on what players are making across the country. Baker said this would benefit student athletes and their families to ensure that they are getting the money they deserve and for corporations so they don’t overpay.

“There’s no sort of basic market mechanisms in place you would normally see in a market like this,” Baker said. “One [athletic director] said to me, ‘Everybody lies.’ And that’s a problem for kids and families and everybody else.”

Baker added that the NCAA is going to try to create an internal program to make NIL agreements public. But he worries that a patchwork of state laws will be unwieldy and is pushing for federal action to set one standard. Here’s more:

Of course, we all know the big caveat here. It takes a lot of pressure to convince Congress to act on anything. But the NIL market is huge – as is college athletics – so we’ll keep an eye on this going forward.

– Jake Sherman

RETURN TO ROOTS

McCarthy said he’d reform the Intelligence Committee. Is it working?

When Speaker Kevin McCarthy booted California Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off the House Intelligence Committee in January – a move that infuriated Democrats – his professed goal was to return the panel to its bipartisan focus.

So we wanted to check in and see whether the secretive committee was jiving once again.

Here’s what we can tell you: Intel Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) say they’re ready for a change. That means no more viral clips of partisan clashes from committee hearings or flamethrowing on Twitter or members openly slinging insults at each other.

After the contentious start — and a nudge from their party leaders — Turner and Himes have urged the other members of the panel to hit reset as well. McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Turner and Himes at the start of this Congress to assert their dedication to bipartisanship.

“This committee has been rededicated to national security, returning from its partisan past,” Turner told us in an interview at the Capitol. “We’re always going to have some issues that we disagree on, but really with national security, 90-95% of the overall issues are bipartisan.”

Himes became Intel’s top Democrat after Republicans blocked Schiff from returning for another term on the committee. In a change from the recent past, Himes and Turner have even appeared on TV together. Himes said he got to know Turner during a bipartisan codel to Ukraine in October.

“We’ve built a very solid relationship,” Himes told us.

In previous Congresses, Trump-related investigations in the House often made the traditionally neutral panel a battleground between Republicans and Democrats.

Former Intel Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sparred openly with Schiff, especially on issues related to the Russia investigation. Republicans even released their own minority report on the matter, accusing Democrats of engaging in “disinformation” for alleging the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 elections.

And Schiff ended up overseeing Trump’s first House impeachment, with witness interviews taking place in the Intelligence Committee’s secure facility in the Capitol.

It’s a stark contrast to the Senate Intel Committee, where Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have been able to foster a civil working relationship despite the outside political environment. Turner said he’s reached out to his Senate counterparts, hoping to deepen a bicameral relationship with his own panel.

McCarthy’s decision to boot Schiff and Swalwell became a partisan flashpoint earlier this year. Turner and Himes reflect on what happened in different ways.

“It feels a little lonely sometimes,” Himes said. “I always had Adam, who had more experience than I did on the committee, to consult with on anything that was coming up.”

On the contrary, Turner said “it’s been a great change” with the absence of Schiff and Swalwell.

The Intel Committee has been largely wrapped up in work related to U.S. adversaries such as Russia and China, as well as Covid-19’s origins.

However, we expect the big fight this year to come over reauthorizing FISA Section 702, which allows the federal government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons outside the United States.

“There is bipartisan agreement that FISA, including 702, needs to be reformed,” Turner said. “We will take up the issue of the importance of FISA and 702 as a tool to gain intelligence against our adversaries. At the same time, we want to make sure that Americans’ are protected.”

– Mica Soellner

Punchbowl News is excited to kick off the second year of The Punch Up — a platform focused on breaking down silos between the public and private sector on issues of equity.

For Punchbowl News, an awareness of and commitment to facilitating conversations around gender, race, health, the environment and financial literacy is a core value. Punchbowl News has actively used its journalistic platform to convene candid and informative conversations in these areas, providing visibility to discussions that often happen behind closed doors. Check out our mission for 2023 of The Punch Up.

We are excited to continue creating conversation and forward-moving action in this space.

Interested in getting involved? Partnering on an event? Email us at thepunchup@punchbowl.news. We’d love to hear from you.

PUNCHBOWL NEWS EVENTS

Missed our conversation with House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Tuesday? You can view the full recording here.

… AND THERE’S MORE

The center-left New Democrat Coalition is officially opposing the House Republican energy package on the floor this week. New Dems released a statement saying the group “is ready to find bipartisan solutions to accelerate clean energy deployment and lower energy prices.” Read: The group is willing to pursue permitting reform, but H.R. 1 isn’t the way to do it.

New Dems is a large block of moderate Democrats featuring numerous Frontliners in competitive districts. The pushback here indicates that some Democrats in tough races aren’t being swayed to support H.R. 1. But there are a number of Texas and New Mexico Democrats considering backing the legislation.

In addition, we reported earlier this week that some moderate northeastern House Republicans were skittish about supporting the GOP energy package.

The NRCC is launching a billboard campaign dinging Frontline Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) and Susan Wild (D-Pa.) over their votes opposing the D.C. crime disapproval resolution.

Here’s an example of the billboard text:

Of course, President Joe Biden signed the disapproval resolution into law after it passed both chambers of Congress. But vulnerable House Democrats were incensed that the White House flip-flopped on its position. The fear was they would be targeted over their vote, which is exactly what is happening here.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

8:30 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

11:20 a.m.: Biden will host the Summit for Democracy virtual plenary.

11:30 a.m.: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and other House Democrats will host an event on the East Front steps, calling on Congress to address gun violence.

1 p.m.: Karine Jean-Pierre will brief.

2:45 p.m.: Biden will meet with Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez.

5 p.m.: Biden will host a Greek Independence Day celebration.

CLIP FILE

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