How Midterms Impacted Youth Sports

The STRONG Kids Act got caught up in the blue tsunami.

Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, was ousted from his Columbus-area House seat in a pretty big upset. The other co-sponsor — Rep. Nanette Díaz Barragán (D-CA) — was comfortably re-elected in her Los Angeles-area district.

Díaz Barragán could re-introduce the bill herself next year. But STRONG Kids’ backers placed an emphasis on its bipartisan nature when it was introduced, so it would not be a surprise if it gets put on hold until another Republican signs on.

(A member who would have made sense — Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) — was also defeated; he had introduced smaller youth sports-related bills in the past.)

As for the Let Kids Play Act: The question now is not whether it gets a renewed push — it almost certainly will — but how Democrats play it.

The bill’s flaws are well-documented. The legislation targets the private equity capital structure as a monolith and does virtually nothing to curb the so-called “vulture practices” it decries.

Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) told us in June that the bill needed to be marked up. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Semafor in August he wanted to "do a version of that bill that has Republican support" after the midterms. There have been messaging shifts among advocates. And we have heard that many on Capitol Hill privately concede the bill as currently written does not work.

But this was all before Democrats secured massive majorities in both chambers of Congress. The heavily-involved American Economic Liberties Project has made it clear it is still taking aim at PE. And as we’ve written before, the bill’s prominent co-sponsors are all expected to be seeking higher offices very soon.

So it’s fair to wonder if this historic landslide and all the other factors will temper any thought to overhaul the bill.

Elsewhere on Election Day …

A proposed $17M volleyball complex in Lincoln, Nebraska, had its state funding package approved by voters
Voters in Louisiana’s Caddo Parish rejected a $60M bond proposition that would have provided the bulk of funding for a $70M indoor complex in the Shreveport area