Both Sen. Katie Britt and Sen. Tommy Tuberville last week came out in support of the Protect College Sports Act — a bill seeking to place guardrails on spending in college sports. Britt and Tuberville’s support places Alabama’s senators in opposition to some of the state’s major college athletics programs.

The bipartisan bill has been a topic of contention in the Senate since it was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in May. The bill’s sponsors say it is meant to curtail the rampant spending and transfers that have become the norm in college athletics since name, image and likeness laws went into effect in 2021. 

Notably, the bill places a 22% cap on revenue colleges are allowed to share with their players and places a 5% cap on payments to agents in an attempt to curtail spending on college athletics.

The bill also places limits on how often student-athletes can transfer to another university to one “free” transfer that would not affect their eligibility. Any subsequent transfer would require athletes to sit out of competition for a year. There are exceptions to this transfer eligibility rule built into the bill, include for cases where the athlete’s head coach leaves or if their sport is eliminated from their university. The bill also places a five-year total eligibility limit on student-athletes.

The bill has garnered support from Senate leadership and President Donald Trump, as well as some big names in college athletics — including former Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

Initially, both Britt and Tuberville were against the bill. Tuberville, in particular, expressed concerns that the bill would give the federal government too much oversight over college athletics. Tuberville even tried to push a more narrowly-tailored bill that would just place restrictions on transfers, but that bill failed to gain broad support.

“College sports is, of course, important to me because I’ve been around it all my life, and I don’t want to see it overshadowed by the federal government,” Tuberville, a former Auburn football coach, said about his reservations regarding the bill.

However, last week Tuberville threw his support behind the bill due to a lack of other bills placing regulations on college sports.

“We can’t get anything else done. Something has to be done,” he said. “Let’s try it. But the problem is, when you do it, it’s hard to retract anything.”

Britt threw her support behind the bill after language was clarified ensuring that the bill would not be in conflict with Alabama’s ban on transgender women athletes. Last week, she also worked on an amendment to the bill that would make it easier for universities to change athletic conferences.

Tuberville and Britt’s support for the bill conflicts with the University of Alabama and Auburn University’s opposition to it. The state’s college athletic powerhouses released a joint statement in July, arguing that the bill would “perpetuating the very instability it claims to cure” by undermining universities’ control over their athletic programs and advancing private equity by changing media revenue rights rules.

The NAACP also opposes the bill, citing that the bill would work to divest economic power from Black student-athletes. The civil rights organization also tied its opposition to the bill to their opposition of redistricting laws across the South that have worked to dilute the Black voting power in these states.

“This is about more than sports. This is a matter of both economic and political power. We’re challenging the institutions that profit from Black athletes to also stand up for the Black communities that make their success possible,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson said about the bill.

The bill is likely to move to a Senate floor vote early this week.

Alabama top stories in brief

Alabama executes Jeffery Lee despite legal challenges

• Alabama executed death row inmate Jeffery Lee by lethal injection last week.
• Lee was convicted of killing two people in a pawn shop in Orville in 1998.
• Lee was sentenced to death through a now-outlawed practice called judicial override — where a judge overrides the jury’s suggested sentence, and, instead, applies the death sentence.
• Lee’s attorneys challenged his execution over the use of judicial override. 
• Lee’s attorneys also challenged the state’s use of nitrogen gas in executions. This led to a federal court ruling earlier this year that barred the state from using the execution method on the grounds that the method was unconstitutionally cruel, winning Lee a brief reprieve from execution.
• Lee is the second person to be executed in Alabama this year.

16th Street Baptist Church marks bombing anniversary with new visitor center

• Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church last week marked the 63rd anniversary of its bombing by opening a new visitor center.
• In 1963, the church was bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan, killing four girls prior to Sunday services.
• The church opened the new visitor center during its annual memorial service. The new center includes exhibits and includes spaces for artist residencies, speaker events and other programming.
• “I want them to take away that history is not just in the past. History is also present, and that there’s still work to do,” said the Rev. Arthur Price Jr., the pastor of 16th Street Baptist, about the new center.

APT board approves survey about public opinion on PBS

• The Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority last week voted to fund a survey meant to gauge Alabamian’s opinions of PBS.
• The survey would be conducted by Cygnal, a Republican-leaning polling firm. Cygnal is working with Sen. Tommy Tuberville on his gubernatorial campaign.
• The survey will poll 600 people across the state about their political leanings and how they feel about APT disaffiliating from PBS.
• The survey will cost $39,500 to conduct. These funds will come from APT’s rainy day fund.

Jones, Ensler release joint plan to overhaul lieutenant governor’s role

• Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones and the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, Phillip Ensler, last week released a shared plan to redefine the lieutenant governor’s role in the state government if the pair were to be elected in November.
• The pair propose moving the lieutenant governor into the executive branch, where they would work more like a cabinet member for the governor. Currently, the lieutenant governor serves as the president of the senate, heading up the legislative branch.
• Jones and Ensler’s plan also advocates for electing the governor and lieutenant governor as a ticket. Currently, both offices are elected in separate races. 
• The lieutenant governor’s powers were greatly revised and diminished by state legislators in 1999, during a stand-off between the then-Democratically controlled senate and then-Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, when much of the lieutenant governor’s legislative powers were transferred to the senate pro tem. The office’s powers were reduced even more this spring, when legislators passed a bill allowing the senate pro tem to preside over the senate in certain circumstances. 
• Changing the lieutenant governor role would require the state’s legislature to pass a constitutional amendment that would then be voted on in a statewide election.

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