SWAC makes decision on NCAA House settlement
The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) has officially opted in to the House v. NCAA settlement. This move marks a major step forward in the future of college athlete compensation.
The announcement came after the SWAC's 2025-26 Annual Spring Meetings held over the weekend. All twelve member schools voted to join the settlement. In addition, the conference will not place scholarship caps on any sport it currently sponsors.
"This is undoubtedly a significant moment for the Southwestern Athletic Conference and our twelve member institutions," said SWAC Commissioner Dr. Charles McClelland.
"As we move forward into a new era of intercollegiate athletics, the Southwestern Athletic Conference remains steadfast in our commitment to provide our membership with the resources needed to positively impact our student-athletes academically and athletically."
House Settlement Finalized on June 6
The House settlement was officially finalized on June 6, 2025, marking a historic shift in college athletics. The agreement allows NCAA Division I schools to share up to $20.5 million per year in revenue directly with student-athletes. This ends the NCAA's longstanding amateurism model and introduces a new era of compensation and benefits.
Other HBCUs Already Opted In
Before the SWAC's announcement, several HBCUs had already opted in to the settlement. These include:
Morgan StateMaryland Eastern ShoreTennessee StateNorth Carolina A&THampton University
These early decisions reflect a broader trend within the HBCU community to adapt to a changing NCAA landscape. By opting in, these schools are taking proactive steps to support their athletes and remain competitive.
The post SWAC makes decision on NCAA House settlement appeared first on HBCU Gameday.
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Politico
32 minutes ago
- Politico
Senate Republicans cool to Finance Committee's tax plan
Senate GOP leaders are facing early pushback over a key plank of their 'big, beautiful bill' just hours after rolling it out, underscoring the work that remains to bring the legislation to the floor next week. Signs of discontent within the Republican Conference came as Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo privately briefed his colleagues Monday night on his portion of the megabill central to enacting key elements of President Donald Trump's domestic agenda. Crapo's committee is responsible for some of the most politically consequential components of the party-line package, including changes to Medicaid, the fate of clean-energy energy tax credits and the state-and-local tax deduction that is important to high-tax state House Republicans. The briefing Monday was designed to explain the panel's rationale, answer questions and alleviate any anxieties. But immediate reaction from lawmakers across the ideological spectrum upon that meeting's conclusion indicated leadership has a ways to go — especially as Republicans still hope to meet their self-imposed July Fourth deadline for clearing the larger bill for Trump's signature. 'We're not doing anything to significantly alter the course of the financial future of this country,' Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters Monday evening, adding that the current Senate Finance proposal 'does not meet the moment' and that he would vote no if it came to the floor as is. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has drawn public red lines over any overhauls to Medicaid resulting in potential losses in benefits, described himself as 'alarmed' by the committee's new plan, which would go further than the House bill on making changes to the health care safety net program. 'This needs a lot of work. It's really concerning and I'm really surprised by it. … I'd be really interested to see what the president thinks of it,' said Hawley, who has previously said that Trump personally told him the bill should not cut Medicaid benefits. Senate Republicans agreed to nothing in the Monday night meeting, according to attendees, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Crapo both emphasizing that Republicans were engaged in an ongoing negotiation — both among themselves and with their House counterparts, who passed their version of the megabill last month. Thune afterward summed up his message to the conference as: 'We gotta get this done.' Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), in describing Crapo and Thune's messaging at the briefing, said, 'They're really patient. They are listening to everyone's ideas. And they're still working on it — it's still a work in progress.' Crapo's bill would, among other things, scale back some of Trump's campaign promises on creating new tax breaks for tips and overtime. He is also seeking to soften the House-passed bill's endowment tax hike and include a smaller increase on the Child Tax Credit. Senators also pitched Crapo and Thune at the Monday meeting on their own ideas about what they still want to see in the bill. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of leadership, said the meeting 'wasn't hostile' but lawmakers told Crapo and Thune, 'I've got questions.'' Lankford added, 'Some people were like, 'I want to go even more.' … But somebody else would step up and say, 'that's already farther than I want to be able to go.'' Thune wants to put the bill on the floor next week, when he can only lose three GOP senators and still ensure the measure's passage. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is widely expected to vote 'no.' And based on the early reaction to both the tax portion of the megabill, Thune still has work to do to shore up his whip count elsewhere, too. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who shares Johnson's concerns about spending too much and not reducing the deficit enough, said he also doesn't believe the emerging Senate megabill framework goes far enough on Medicaid. Scott suggested that lawmakers should reconsider attaching a provision to the bill that would scale back the 90 percent of Medicaid expansion costs covered by the federal government. This policy change would yield major savings to offset the legislation's heavy price tag, but was deemed too politically toxic to follow through on in the House. 'The only way this is going to get fixed is — we've got to say the 90-10 match doesn't make any sense,' Scott said after the closed-door meeting. Elsewhere in the conference, Hawley and other Senate Republicans are squeamish about the Senate Finance plan to draw down the provider tax and how that would impact funding for rural hospitals. Many states use this tax to help fund their Medicaid programs. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine largely declined to comment as she left the meeting, but asked if she still had concerns about the provider tax, she said: 'Yes, I do.' And while she credited leadership with consulting closely with her as they drafted the Finance draft text, conceded they didn't heed her on every demand: 'Sometimes yes, sometimes no.' The Senate Finance Committee text released Monday also would soften the House version's phaseout of Biden-era clean-energy tax credits, where members of the House Freedom Caucus won eleventh-hour concessions from leadership to pursue more aggressive rollbacks of the green incentives. The Senate panel's proposed language would constitute its own concession to some purple-state and moderate Republicans who have warned that the House bill would undercut businesses that have already made investments based on certainty around the climate law subsidies. But GOP leadership's attempts to find a middle ground sparked public pushback from Sen. Mike Lee, with the Utah Republican writing on X, 'Extending these subsidies beyond the Trump administration effectively makes them permanent Who else did *not* vote for that?' Complicating matters: It's not just Senate Republicans who are crying foul over details of the Senate Finance proposal. House Republicans are warning, too, that the committee's initial draft text that put the SALT dedication cap at $10,000 is a nonstarter in their chamber, where Speaker Mike Johnson cut a deal to raise it to $40,000. Republicans tried to mollify their House counterparts Monday by noting that their initial offer was just a stand-in as they continue discussing a different cap all sides could live with. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said that he had also been in touch that very day with Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who panned the Senate proposal as 'dead on arrival.' 'That was just a placeholder,' Mullin said. 'I talked to Mike about it. We understand.' House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), in a social media post late Monday, offered congratulations to Crapo on his chamber's opening bid. 'We've worked closely together for months to reach agreement on key provisions, while understanding the work that remains to be done to achieve consensus between both chambers of Congress and get this bill on the President's desk,' said the House's chief tax writer. 'We will thread that needle to respect the needs of both bodies in the days ahead. Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Here's what's in the Senate GOP's version of Trump's ‘big, beautiful bill'
The Senate Finance Committee on Monday unveiled its portion of President Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' containing provisions on Medicaid, taxes and green energy tax credits. The committee's text is the final piece of the upper chamber's version of the bill to be released, and was the most highly anticipated. It contains some of the thorniest provisions that Senate GOP holdouts have expressed concerns about, and the issues that could set the upper chamber on a collision course with the House. The House narrowly passed its version of the legislation last month. Here's what's in the Senate's bill. The bill makes many of the core elements of their 2017 tax cuts permanent but scales back additional cuts from what the House passed. The Senate bill locks in existing federal tax brackets, boosts the standard deduction and maintains the termination of personal exemptions — all without sunsets. 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Non-expansion states would be prohibited from imposing new taxes, but as was true in the House-passed version, their rates would be frozen at current levels. The lower cap would not apply to nursing homes or intermediate care facilities. Limiting provider taxes is a long-held conservative goal, as they argue states are gaming the current system and driving up federal Medicaid spending. The policies are designed to inflate Medicaid spending on paper to allow states to receive more federal reimbursement dollars. The Senate bill also cuts certain existing state-directed payments to hospitals, which would be a significant hit to the hospitals' bottom line. The House version in contrast limited future payments but grandfathered existing arrangements. The change in the Senate bill is sure to anger Republicans who were already expressing concerns about the impact of the freeze in the House-passed version, including key holdouts like Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Provider taxes have become an important lifeline for hospitals, and rural hospitals would be hit hardest by the cuts. Hawley on Monday night signaled dissatisfaction with the newly unveiled text. Like the House bill, the Senate legislation imposes work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries beginning at 19 years old. But the Senate version says adults with dependent children older than 14 will also have to prove they work, attend school or perform community service for 80 hours a month, while the House-passed version would exempt all adults with dependent children. The bill includes changes to green energy tax credits that are more flexible than those passed by the House — but would still be a significant rollback. The Senate text appears to eliminate the most stringent provision in the House bill, deleting a measure that would have required climate-friendly energy sources to start construction within 60 days of the bill's enactment to qualify for the credits at all. Instead, things such as solar panels and wind farms would need to begin construction this year in order to receive the full credit amount. Projects that begin construction in 2026 would get 60 percent of the credit, while projects that begin construction in 2027 would receive 20 percent. Projects constructed in 2028 or later would not be eligible for the credit. This, too, appears to be more flexible than the House text, which required projects to not just start construction but actually be producing electricity by the end of 2028 to qualify for the credit. Nevertheless, the Senate provisions are still a major rollback of the tax credits passed by Democrats in their 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 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But the House's SALT Caucus Republicans are insisting on the $40,000 number. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a key member of the group, wrote on the social platform X that the proposal was 'DEAD ON ARRIVAL' and warned in a statement that a $40,000 deduction cap 'is the deal and I will not accept a penny less.' The bill would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, instead of the $4 trillion increase adopted by House Republicans. The debt-ceiling language is a major problem for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has told his leadership he won't support the bill if it includes such a large extension of federal borrowing authority. Mychael Schnell and Al Weaver contributed.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Experts decry new language in tax-cut bill, say only billionaires could challenge U.S. government
Senate Republicans have shelved, at least for now, a provision of President Donald Trump's tax-cut bill that would prevent enforcement of some past court orders against Trump. It has been replaced by a provision that could make it virtually impossible for average Americans to seek injunctions against the government for violating their rights. The new language would require anyone seeking a court order requiring, or prohibiting, actions by the federal government to post a bond that would fully cover the government's potential damages and other costs of complying with the order. Opponents say the costs could amount to at least millions of dollars. Injunctions are judicial orders prohibiting the government, an organization or an individual from taking actions that a judge has found are likely illegal. The bill approved by the House on a 215-214 vote last month, which would cut taxes for the rich and health care for the poor, would also have allowed a judge to find a violator of an injunction in contempt of court, and impose fines or imprisonment, only if the judge had required the other party to post a bond of any amount. Judges commonly issue injunctions without ordering a bond. Because the House bill would have applied, retroactively, to past as well as future injunctions, it could have allowed Trump to ignore existing court orders like those prohibiting him from sending immigrants to prisons in El Salvador without facing penalties. That provision was quietly removed from the bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans last week. In its place is a mandate that would apply to all future injunctions against the federal government and require a bond that would pay for the government's 'costs and damages' in complying with the injunction. If the injunction was upheld on appeal, the individual or group that sought it could recover the costs of the bond. If not, the funds would be transferred to the government. 'Finally, the Senate Judiciary Committee is advancing solutions in the One Big Beautiful Bill to restore the constitutional role of the federal judiciary,' Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee chairman, said in a statement, using Trump's label for his tax-cut bill. Grassley said the new provision would 'enforce the existing, lawful requirement that courts impose a bond upfront when attempting to hit the government with a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order that results in costs and damages ultimately sustained by American taxpayers.' A different perspective came from Alicia Bannon, judiciary program director at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. If this language becomes law, Bannon said, 'it will be financially impossible for ordinary Americans to go to court to protect their rights,' like trying to make sure they receive Social Security payments or are protected against unlawful deportation. Bonds for those orders could cost many millions of dollars, she said. Or much more, said attorneys at the National Women's Law Center, if Trump's deep budget cuts to agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs were challenged by a group of military veterans. 'If this measure stays in the bill, only a billionaire would be able to get prompt relief from the courts when this administration breaks the law,' said Emily Martin, chief program officer at the Washington, D.C.-based law center. And Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean at UC Berkeley, said the new provision would also prohibit judges from considering the ability of an individual or group to pay the bond. That would prevent many whose rights have been violated from seeking help from the courts 'at a time when the President is violating the Constitution as never before seen in American history,' he said. Trump has denied violating constitutional rights in his deportation orders, shutdowns of federal agencies and attempts to deny U.S. citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, disputes that are before the federal courts. But a more immediate legal battle could decide the fate of the injunction bond requirement in the tax bill. Because it is a budget-related measure, the legislation can win Senate approval by a majority vote in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats, rather than requiring 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster. The newly added bond requirement, however, would not directly affect the federal budget, although it could lower the government's costs by discouraging lawsuits and limiting injunctions. Democrats could ask the Senate's parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, to advise Senate leaders that the bond limits are not budget-related and should be removed from the bill. The Senate normally follows the parliamentarian's conclusions unless 60 senators disagree, but opponents of the bond requirements say they can't take anything for granted. 'Senate Republicans have overruled the parliamentarian before,' said attorney Alison Gill of the National Women's Law Center. 'It is possible that they may do so to include this dangerous provision.'
