The Brief

For four years, Stanford student Liam Anderson has gone to what he calls his “full-time job.” He puts on his uniform, laces up his shoes and just runs. As captain of the Stanford track and field team, the public policy major has put in 20 to 40 hours of running, conditioning and physical therapy each week — a pace he’ll continue when he returns to campus this fall to pursue his master’s degree.

It’s a lot of time away from academics, with little financial reward, which is partly why Anderson has been supporting and advising California lawmakers on new legislation that could dramatically alter college athletes’ compensation.

“This is the only labor market where the primary labor input — the players — receive essentially zero compensation from their employers,” Anderson said. “It is very difficult on a philosophical level to argue that these players do not deserve some form of compensation. To say a scholarship is enough is laughable.”

Assembly Bill 252, or the College Athlete Protection Act, would require California colleges to put some of their sports revenue into a fund that would pay student-athletes when they complete their degrees. Athletes could earn as much as $25,000 for each year they participate in their sport.

But the bill has been controversial. Last week, its author, Assemblymember Chris Holden, put it on hold until next year after opponents — including the University of California, California State University and Team USA — argued it would further prioritize men’s basketball and football, causing campuses with tight athletic budgets to divert resources away from less lucrative sports. The NCAA has also opposed it.

Supporters say the first-in-the-nation bill, which the state Senate could take up again as early as January, bolsters athletes’ rights by giving them a cut of the revenue they generate. It’s the latest flashpoint in the debate over student-athlete compensation, in which California has played a leading role.

As written, the bill would also require colleges to comply with a variety of health and safety standards, including paying all out-of-pocket health care costs for athletes injured on the field, and providing players with financial and life skills training. Sports agents seeking to represent student-athletes would need to be certified by the state. A 21-member panel appointed by the Legislature and governor, with seats set aside for former college athletes, would oversee compliance.

The degree completion fund, however, has drawn the most attention since it would be a further blow to the amateurism model in college sports. California already catalyzed change within the NCAA when it allowed student-athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness. NCAA policy now permits athletes to sign endorsement deals, but that money comes from private sponsors rather than the universities themselves. Athletes receiving it would be eligible for the degree completion funds, too.

Combined, California’s 26 Division I schools earned $1.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That includes media contracts, ticket sales, investment interest income, student activity fees and alumni contributions.

“Revenue is being generated. There are TV rights that are being negotiated for someone to make a lot of money, and it is not the student-athlete,” said Holden, a Pasadena Democrat who played college basketball for San Diego State from 1978 to 1982.

“This is an opportunity to really recognize the kind of sacrifices that many of these athletes put on the line on behalf of universities and the NCAA, institutions that make billions of dollars,” Holden added.

Money for the degree completion fund would come from a university’s existing athletic revenue. Beginning in 2024, if an athletic department makes more annual revenue than it did in the 2021-22 academic year, the difference would be deposited in the fund. Athletes’ payments would depend in part on how much revenue their sport generates and how much their team already gives out in athletic grants.

Football and men’s basketball make up a majority of revenue brought in by athletic departments, and some of those funds currently go to subsidize other sports. That caused some supporters of those lower-revenue sports — such as swimming and volleyball — to worry that the bill would sap much-needed funding from their programs.

“If schools do not have the budget to fund sports, they will cut sports,” says an open letter from Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton to Holden. “If this were the case, we know from history that women’s sports and men’s Olympic sports would be among the first to be cut.”

Of the 21 NCAA Division I sports, 19 will be contested at either the 2024 Summer Olympics or 2026 Winter Olympics.

After initial concerns that the bill would violate Title IX by threatening the funding of women’s sports teams, lawmakers added an amendment to split the allocation of degree completion funds 50/50 between female and male college athletes.

Some opponents, however, still weren’t convinced.

“It’s great that (payments) would go towards some women, but if it becomes infeasible for schools to then support the programs at all, then we’re not really ahead of where we started,” said Maya Dirado, a Stanford graduate and Olympic gold medalist in swimming.

Liam Anderson, a Stanford track and field athlete and co-president of the university’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, supports a proposal to pay college players a share of the revenue they generate.

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CalMatters

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Elise Byun, a UC Berkeley gymnast and member of the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, said she believes that NCAA athletes should be financially compensated by their college beyond athletic grants. However, she said the bill as written could jeopardize funding for non-revenue and Olympic sports, as well as programs like mental health counseling that would benefit all athletes.

“If the revenue that’s being taken is just giving back to football and basketball, we can’t advance the student-athlete experience,” Byun said. “There’s no money left over to help bring up everyone.”

Also, the bill would not benefit athletes like Byun, who is not on scholarship, because degree payments would only go to those who receive an athletic grant. Division II, Division III and community college athletes would also be ineligible.

The University of California and California State University also raised concerns.

“The bill’s revenue-sharing framework also would create broader inequities among our student-athletes, as support for non-revenue sports would likely decrease and disproportionately impact women’s programs,” said Hazel Kelly, a CSU spokesperson. “This one-size-fits-all proposal is not appropriate for the broad diversity of size, scope and competitiveness that are the hallmarks of the CSU’s athletic programs.”

Holden said athletic departments shouldn’t be worried about losing money for different programs because the degree completion fund doesn’t tap the department’s total budget, just the “excess” revenue generated above 2021-22 levels. The bill also prohibits schools from cutting athletic programs that were in place in the 2021-22 academic year.

“So we have provisions in it to protect all programs within the athletic department — men’s and women’s sports, from NCAA Division I football all the way to the rugby players who happen to be on a team if you have a rugby program — so that those programs would be maintained,” he said.

The next frontier in the debate over athletes’ rights

Holden declined further comment on why he had chosen to delay the bill, or the specifics of its formula for funding degree payments. The bill had been scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on July 5, but was pulled from the agenda that day and has become a “two-year bill,” meaning it can be considered in the second year of California’s two-year legislative session. That’s a common move by lawmakers who want more time to negotiate details of legislation and sway opponents.

While the bill likely faces a long road, its passage could further cement California’s status as a pioneer in college athlete compensation.

Mark Nagel, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina, said that similar institutional blowback to college athletics reform has been seen before in the past and that prior concerns haven’t really materialized.

“There’s always the idea that college athletics say that any change is going to cause the sky to fall and the world to end,” Nagel said. “We’ve already seen that, whether it’s high-, mid- or low-level programs, Division I universities and colleges have figured out ways to find that money.”

But Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, said that universities making direct payments to athletes beyond scholarships creates a variety of financial issues because there are Division I schools whose athletic departments run on deficits.

“When they lose money, the school has to raise tuition, it has to raise athletic fees, it has to go to the state legislature for more subsidies, it has less money to provide for the education of the athletes. On all of those grounds, it’s a very problematic proposal,” Zimbalist said.

A previous legislative attempt to establish a mandatory degree completion fund for athletes failed in 2022. The current bill passed the California Assembly before heading to the Senate.

The National College Players Association, one of the forces behind California’s push to allow athletes to sign paid endorsement deals, is co-sponsoring the degree completion fund bill, and the California Labor Federation supports it.

“Athletes throughout the state of CA would gain unprecedented and much-needed protections, freedoms and rights. Every athlete will benefit if AB 252 is approved,” NCPA President Ramogi Huma said in an email.

CalMatters politics reporter Alexei Koseff contributed to this story. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.

A panel of federal appellate judges on Sunday questioned the timing, constitutionality and authority of the Justice Department’s demand that California election officials set aside thousands of mail ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be citizens.

During rare weekend arguments, two of the three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared skeptical of a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump’s administration in mid-October. The lawsuit accuses California officials of failing to meet a 48-hour deadline to review 20,000 names the administration flagged as likely noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.

The administration asked a federal judge to require the state to withhold counting those ballots until the voters’ immigration status could be verified. The district judge scheduled a hearing for Oct. 27, days after the case was assigned, but the federal government appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking an expedited decision.

Justice Department attorney Matthew Donnelly told the panel that California is causing irreparable harm “by allowing noncitizens to vote in violation of their own state laws. The damage is irreversible and irrevocable.”

The Trump administration has made efforts to identify noncitizen voters a priority this year, even though noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare.

Circuit Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, questioned whether the appellate court even has jurisdiction to hear the case even before a ruling by the lower court.

Donnelly argued that the schedule set by the lower court judge was too slow and effectively a denial of the government’s request, as state elections officials process thousands of mail ballots every day.

Judge Gabriel Sanchez, appointed by former President Joe Biden, questioned whether the federal government was violating the Tenth Amendment, essentially commandeering the state to enforce a federal law that makes it a misdemeanor for a noncitizen to vote.

The federal government is simply asking California to enforce its own law, which also bans noncitizens from voting, Donnelly said. He argued the state’s refusal to comply with the federal request to set aside the ballots for review was “frustrating the purpose” of the federal law against noncitizen voting.

The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to set the time, place and manner of congressional elections, Bennett said. The executive branch may be “unhappy with what they’re doing, and doesn’t like the manner,” Bennett said, but under the Election Clause the state has the right to determine those issues — including how it sorts out any noncitizen voters.

Attorney Seth Waxman, representing Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan, said the federal government’s list was unreliable and that segregating the ballots for a review process would effectively disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters.

Even if election staffers spent just three minutes checking each of the expected 2.75 million mail ballots against the government’s list, the process would take 140,000 man-hours, Waxman said — or about 16 years of working time.

Waxman cited a review of 200 records from the Trump administration’s list conducted by Los Angeles County staffers. Assistant Registrar-Recorder Monica Flores said in a court filing that the sample included canceled or inactive registrations, individuals with no voting history and voters who appeared to have been born in the United States, which the filing notes “is strong evidence of citizenship.”

If the administration disagrees with how California runs its elections, it can ask Congress to change that process, said attorney Sam Siegel, representing California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

The federal government has provided no credible evidence to support its suspicions, said Siegel.

“It has no basis in law or in fact,” he told the panel. “We just dispute the premise that noncitizens are voting.”

But Judge Patrick Bumatay, who was appointed by Trump, said everyone has an interest in ensuring that only eligible citizens vote. He suggested that granting the administration’s request for an emergency order could provide clarity.

“Without an injunction, you will never know” if that is happening, Bumatay told Siegel.

Bennett said the panel would try to issue a ruling as quickly as possible.

Democrats and outside watchdogs are planning a massive presence at the polls on Election Day driven by concerns that President Donald Trump will further leverage the vast resources of the federal government to interfere with a midterm that could hobble his final two years in office.

They won’t be the only ones there. A sprawling election protection effort on the left that is expected to deploy tens of thousands of monitors will be met by the largest-ever monitoring program by the Justice Department and still more observers from Republican-aligned groups. The result could be unlike anything seen at the polls in modern times.

The effort among Democratic and nonprofit groups includes training volunteers to stand watch outside polling places and report activities they consider concerning. The network includes traditional government watchdogs such as Common Cause and the American Civil Liberties Union plus a flood of volunteers assembled by state Democratic parties, congressional leaders, national activist groups and organizations focused on protecting democracy.

The Democratic National Committee’s Association of State Democratic Committees created a first-of-its-kind cybersecurity unit staffed by former CIA and FBI officials to monitor and report online misinformation, including artificial intelligence deepfakes, said Jane Kleeb, vice chair of the DNC.

That’s as Democratic mayors, attorneys general and secretaries of state host tabletop exercises simulating worst-case scenarios, such as a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at voting locations or the seizure of ballots and voting equipment.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders have assembled a legal team that rivals that of any presidential campaign.

“We’ve never done this before,” Kleeb said of the party’s sweeping efforts. But “we’ve never had to deal with the president of the United States saying that he may seize ballots, put ICE agents outside polling locations and other kinds of very clear direct threats to the voting process.”

The Department of Justice has already filed lawsuits in California and Alaska that could affect ballot counting or certification.

While Trump continues to make baseless allegations of cheating in the election, administration and military officials have said they have no plans to deploy immigration agents or troops to polling sites.

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis blamed “radical Democrats” for creating fears about election security by refusing to enact voter ID requirements and other Republican-backed measures.

“President Trump has done more than any other president to ensure we have free and fair elections,” Bis said.

Tens of thousands of volunteers trained to observe

State Democratic parties have trained an estimated 10,000 volunteers to observe polling places and report anything potentially concerning they might see from federal agents. Common Cause has trained roughly 16,000 more volunteers to stand watch at voting precincts, said Suzanne Almeida, vice president of states for the group

She said a broader Election Protection coalition involving 300 other groups has trained tens of thousands more.

Smaller pockets of volunteers from other groups also are preparing to show up, including roughly 100 organized by Senate Democrats and hundreds more from a Democratic-allied group called Save America, which is training clergy members, veterans, teachers and other local community members. National groups such as Indivisible and MoveOn are activating their own expansive networks.

There are so many organizations working to protect the voting process — including many that cannot legally coordinate with each other — that some officials involved worry about unintentionally creating chaos outside polling locations.

Almeida said Election Day confusion is possible in some precincts but the nature of the threat requires a collective effort.

“It will actually take all of us if some of the threats we are most worried about come to pass,” she said.

Trump administration sends its own team

Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump appointee who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, was asked on CBS’ “60 Minutes” whether the Republican administration is planning to send ICE agents to polling places.

“There is no plan to do that,” she responded.

Still, the Justice Department is planning its largest-ever election monitoring effort, with about 1,000 department staff expected to observe voting and ensure federal laws are being followed, spokesperson Kiersten Pels said. That comes after a primary season in which the department said it deployed more than 100 election monitors across hundreds of polling locations.

At least one of those placements sparked tensions with local officials. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, said the behavior of two monitors during that state’s primary was “a bit aggressive” and “irregular.” A Laramie County clerk said the Justice Department monitors arrived at the polls intending to interview voters, but her office didn’t allow it.

The department disagrees that the monitors did anything improper, Pels said. She added that the monitors are trained to comply with federal law governing conduct at polling places and won’t “interfere with the voting process.”

Democratic lawmakers and voting rights advocates have raised concerns that the Trump administration’s monitors could intimidate voters or abandon the duty they’ve had for decades to protect against civil rights violations.

The department plans to send them to every state, focusing on high-population areas, jurisdictions that have had problems in the past and districts with close elections, according to a senior department official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the department.

The Republican National Committee said its operation involves deploying “election integrity deputy state directors” in 22 states, among them Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina.

Those workers are the “eyes and the ears of the RNC in the field” who recruit volunteers and organize trainings, said Ally Triolo, the RNC’s election integrity communications director. Their mission is to surface anything that seems unlawful.

At the same time, the RNC has enlisted nearly 22,000 poll workers and is recruiting poll-watching volunteers for competitive districts. The poll watchers will “observe the process and help ensure election rules are followed in accordance with the law,” Triolo said.

Local election officials prepare for increased attention

While federal monitors have quietly observed elections for decades, largely without incident, some election officials are taking precautions.

Chris Swope, the city clerk in Lansing, Michigan, said he preemptively contacted law enforcement and his attorney in case federal monitors violate election law, although he expects them to abide by the rules.

The Democratic Mayors Association issued guidance to local Democratic officials with detailed instructions about what to do if federal agents appear at polling locations.

It notes that federal law prohibits the presence of federal immigration agents, the FBI or other investigative personnel. It also issued a reminder that federal agents are not allowed to be armed at the polls, nor are they allowed to interact with voters or handle ballots or election equipment.

Justice Department officials have said their monitors won’t be armed and will not interfere with voting. Asked about department monitors being sent to Georgia, Trump told a reporter recently: “They’re not going to do anything other than watch.”

Some of the poll observations have already begun. Mary Corcoran, Save America’s executive director, said her group’s volunteers have been monitoring precincts during early voting in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio to help give voters a sense of security.

“The fear is the point, and we must do something about it,” she said. “Left unanswered, fear does the work of keeping people home without a single agent setting foot at a polling place.”

— Associated Press writers Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing, Mich., Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Jessica Hill in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

Richard Marx knows how to write a pop hit.

His first seven singles all reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, with hits like "Satisfied" and "Right Here Waiting." His writing credits include Luther Vandross' "Dance With My Father."

But his latest album is showcasing a different side of him.

After Hours blends Great American Songbook standards with original songs that Marx wrote in that classic style. There's also a five-song EP, After Hours: Live From the Grammy Museum, which came from his August performance there.

Marx will bring the album to the Yaamava’ Theater at Yaamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland on Sunday, Nov. 1.

From backup singer to hitmaker

Marx's journey started when he arrived in Los Angeles at 18.

"The first door opened for me kind of immediately," Marx said in an interview with LAist Morning Edition Host Austin Cross. "The first job I had right out of the gate was singing background vocals for Lionel Richie on his first solo album."

That connection allowed Marx to meet Kenny Rogers, with whom he wrote the No. 1 country song "Crazy." But it would still take years before Marx would find his own success as an artist.

"I remember when I started having success as a songwriter and singing on all these other people's hit records," Marx said. "I really thought that would be the fuel, but every record company rejected me for several years. I got rejected time and time again on songs that became massive hits. So, you have to just believe in yourself and wait for that right opportunity to come around."

Writing like it's 1948

Marx's new album is a real departure from the music that made him a star. Initially, he didn't think he was ready to record these types of songs.

"It was a delusion on my part that I wasn't old enough," Marx said. "I thought, 'I'm not old enough to sing those old standards.' Then it dawned on me that I'm 63 years old."

Marx decided not to just record American classics. He also wrote original music in that same style.

"When I realized that I could create something special in writing half the album, it all started to make sense to me," Marx said. "And I have to say that the writing of this album was the most challenging and enjoyable songwriting I think I've ever done."

The first song Marx wrote for the album was called "All I Ever Needed," which features a trumpet solo by Chris Botti.

"I pretended that I was a young, struggling songwriter in 1948, trying to get Sinatra to cut one of my songs," Marx said. "I took a long walk, and I thought whatever comes into my mind, I'm gonna go with it. An hour later, when I came back home, that whole song was written."

For another song called "Magic Hour," Marx got an assist from his wife, Daisy Fuentes.

"It's my favorite song on the album," Marx said. "The lyrics plagued me for a while. So [Fuentes] and I sat down and had a martini, and she just kept talking and telling me this story, and I turned it into lyrics."

Another highlight on After Hours is Marx's duet with Rod Stewart on the song "Young at Heart."

"Rod was just such a hero my whole life," Marx said. "We just kind of accidentally became great friends over the last four years. And in that process, it was Rod who suggested that we do a duet."

Marx is now looking for new goals.

"I'm in the process now of building my new bucket list, and there's really nothing on it so far," Marx said. "I wanna keep making music that makes me feel the way this album made me feel."

See him live

Tickets for Marx's upcoming show at the Yaamava’ Theater at Yaamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland on Sunday, Nov. 1, are available through AXS.