Elie Mystal In this week’s Elie v. U.S ., our justice correspondent looks at the Supreme Court’s rejection of Trump’s latest move to restrict mail-in voting. Plus, why Ted Cruz’s college-sports bill threatens athletes’ labor rights.
Page S2From§Eachthe midnight edition — 21 September 2026
Senate advances bill named to protect college sports, written by the man college sports needs protecting from.
Hot Mic Moment
This reporter has now confirmed the People's House has gone dark for the final two weeks of September while the Senate devotes its remaining floor time to finalizing federal rules for compensating college athletes and limiting transfers. That is priorities, stated plainly: the chamber found time for name, image and likeness and has not yet found time for whatever else is stacked behind it. Somebody get this reporter the political desk before he says which chamber that is.
Gushis side
GUS: Ladies and gentlemen, this reporter has confirmed that the United States Senate today passed, on final passage, the Protect College Sports Act by a commanding 91 to 3, closing the book on the wildest offseason legislative sprint since the designated hitter rule.
GUS: No matter. This reporter credits the fourth-quarter heroics to the bill's tireless champion, the gentleman from Florida, Senator Marco Rubio, who reportedly commandeered ESPN's "College GameDay" itself to advance the cause.
GUS: A fine gesture of civic theater, this reporter must say. Nothing stirs a Saturday morning audience quite like a United States Senator borrowing the biggest stage in the sport to discuss anything other than the sport.
Trudyher side
Slow your roll, sugar. Nobody passed anything today. The Senate voted to advance the Protect College Sports Act back on September 15th — NBC News called it exactly that, a vote to move forward, not a final tally. This week's Senate floor time, per The Hill, is aimed at getting the bill to final passage, which is still pending.
Wrong state, wrong senator, same conference. That was Ted Cruz of Texas, on the air last week, and Kirk Herbstreit had to go defend the booking afterward — his words to reporters were that "they were going to be voting this week." Cruz himself told reporters he'd like President Trump to sign the bill live on GameDay once it clears.
That's the whole complaint. The Nation ran the headline flat: "We Need to Protect College Sports from Ted Cruz." Not the transfer portal. Not the coaches already on the hot seat in Week 4 that CBS Sports is tracking. Him.
Take his mic, not the political desk — he doesn't have clearance for irony. But check the receipt: The Hill's own rundown of this week on the Hill confirms the House is out and the Senate's top-of-the-agenda item is this bill, so for once the man watching a football pregame show got the calendar right.
“They had two weeks of Senate floor time and Ted Cruz spent his slice of it auditioning for a Saturday morning pregame slot instead of whatever's stacked up behind it. The bill's literally called "Protect College Sports" and the loudest name attached to it is the guy The Nation says the sport needs protecting from. That's not legislating, that's a man renting the biggest microphone in the sport to talk about himself.”
“Look, the Senator was invited on GameDay because there was a vote that week — Herbstreit said it himself, that's just news judgment, nothing to see here. And a bill that clears with real bipartisan margins, not a squeak-by 60, that's basically consensus, that's — wait, did I just call a stump speech consensus? That's not what I meant.”
The receipts
These players and coaches are feeling the heat, roughly one quarter into the regular season
With the House out of session for the final two weeks of September, the legislative spotlight is squarely on the Senate, where lawmakers face a packed stretch of work on several of the GOP’s remaining priorities. On top of their agenda is legislation that would create national rules for compensating college athletes, limiting transfers…
Football analyst and ESPN personality Kirk Herbstreit defended the network's decision to have Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on the network's flagship college football pregame show last week. "We had him on because they were going to be voting this week," Herbstreit told reporters Friday, referring to the Protect College Sports Act, a Senate…
· Senate votes to move forward with Protect College Sports Act from the morgue, 15 Sep 2026
· Cruz: Trump should sign college sports bill live on ESPN's 'College GameDay' once passed from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.