WASHINGTON — Members of Congress gathered again Thursday for a hearing on college sports, this time to discuss the draft of a bill introduced by Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Kentucky) and Gus Bilirakis (R-Florida), both members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

And that hearing again showed that there is a stark partisan divide on the key issues, including antitrust protection, a preemption of state laws and athlete employment rights.

Activity has picked up on Capitol Hill since U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken approved Friday the House v. NCAA settlement that creates a new economic model for top-tier college athletics by allowing schools to pay their athletes directly. Republicans in the House are pulling together three committees (Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, Education and the Workforce) to work on a bill.

According to one Democratic aide, it’s more common than ever to bump into a lobbyist for the NCAA or the power conferences in both the House and Senate hallways. The blitzing strategy — particularly combining the powers of three committees — is a sound way to push a bill through the House.

And because the House is a simple majority chamber, Republicans could, in theory, advance a bill to the Senate without bipartisan support.But with 60 votes needed in the Senate, bipartisan support, or a lack thereof, remains a key point of any breakdown of college sports legislation and its chances of passing. Thursday’s hearing, held by the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on commerce, manufacturing and trade, showed how hard it will be to achieve that. But with the Republicans aggressively mobilizing, more Democrats are paying attention to the issue.

Their thoughts, though, were maybe best summed up Thursday by Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-New York): “With the recent settlement in House v. NCAA, it’s more important than ever that we reach some consensus on what exactly our role is here. Unfortunately, in its current form, the discussion draft before us today is something I cannot support.”

“I have some real concerns with the current iteration of this bill as well as some provisions of the settlement,” Clarke continued. “I am extremely hesitant to grant any kind of liability limit on antitrust protections at this stage given that antitrust lawsuits are the driving factor in bringing about this long overdue era of fair compensation for athletes. The settlement and discussion draft before us make clear to me there needs to be some kind of legitimate collective bargaining between college athletes and the NCAA and its members.”

The Guthrie/Bilirakis draft, along with pending contributions from the Judiciary committee, would check off many of the NCAA’s long-standing asks and then some. It includes a ban on athletes becoming employees; a preemption of state laws that conflict with rules set by the NCAA and its conferences; and broad antitrust protection for the NCAA and its conferences, which would insulate them from lawsuits while they enforce rules on eligibility, player movement and athlete compensation, including many new regulations established by the House settlement.

The Republicans are using three committees so that each can offer language on issues under its jurisdiction. The Energy and Commerce Committee is looking at state preemption and agent registry that would be run by the NCAA and its conferences. The Judiciary Committee is looking at antitrust protection. And the Education and the Workforce Committee is looking at making sure college athletes cannot become employees. (Rep. Lisa C. McClain (R-Michigan), a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, introduced a separate, bipartisan bill with Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Oregon) this week that included an employment ban.)

Because Republicans hold the majority, they chose three of the four witnesses Thursday: William King, the SEC’s associate commissioner for legal affairs; Sherika A. Montgomery, the Big South commissioner; and Ashley Cozad, a former North Florida swimmer who also chaired the Division I chapter of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, an NCAA-run program. And the Democrats went with Ramogi Huma, an athlete advocate who has long pushed for athletes to be recognized as employees of their schools or conferences (or at least maintain the right to explore that possibility).

King and Huma did most of the talking. King, aligned with the committee’s Republicans on each issue, kept hammering that the NCAA and its members need congressional help to enforce new rules set by the House settlement without the threat of constant lawsuits. Huma, on the other hand, vehemently opposed the Guthrie/Bilirakis draft, then framed the House settlement as restricting athlete earning power that has been established by various court decisions.

Montgomery, sharing the perspective of a former athlete and small-conference commissioner, was in favor of congressional action that would preempt state laws and offer some antitrust protection. So was Cozad, who repeatedly echoed NCAA talking points on athlete employment, saying it would force a lot of schools to stop funding smaller, nonrevenue sports such as hers.

From the beginning of the hearing, Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts), the lead House Democrat on college sports, made it clear she had no interest in the Guthrie/Bilirakis draft. She said no Democrats were consulted before it was publicized, that she learned about the draft only after it was circulated by lobbyists and leaked by the media. Bilirakis took exception to that, saying he agreed to a meeting but Trahan’s staff never reached out. He said, over and over, that this was just a draft, adding that he would welcome working with Trahan and others to gain bipartisan support. Trahan later said she looked forward to those conversations.

(After the hearing, Bilirakis told Yahoo Sports he would consider suggestions from Democrats. He also said he believes the Republicans are close to formally introducing the bill.).

“I’m deeply disappointed, for the second year in a row, Republicans on the committee are advancing a partisan college sports bill that protects the power brokers of college athletics at the expense of the athletes themselves,” Trahan, a former Georgetown volleyball player, said in her opening statement. She suggested that, if Congress wants to look at college sports, it should focus more on the treatment of international athletes and enforcing Title IX laws for gender equity. After the House settlement was approved, Trahan quickly released a statement opposing the legislation the NCAA is pushing for, maybe harder than ever.

“Proponents (of this bill) claim the system is broken,” she continued in her opening Thursday. “The fact that three separate antitrust cases are being settled proves otherwise. We have a system where the NCAA, conferences and their member institutions set rules. Athletes can challenge them, and if the rules are unfair, courts can intervene or a deal can be struck. This bill rewrites that process to guarantee people in power always win and the athletes that fuel this multibillion dollar industry always lose.”

If there was any doubt — and there wasn’t — Trahan closed by saying she opposed the legislation as written, like Clarke and their Democratic colleagues. Later in the hearing, when Trahan had five minutes for questions, she and Huma ticked through all the ways they believe the bill would infringe on athlete rights.

The Republicans, of course, hold a much different collective view. With Cozad as their in-person example, many of them mentioned that most athletes don’t want to be employees or members of a labor union. When Russell Fry (R-South Carolina) asked Huma why he would push for unionization when athletes don’t want it, Huma told Fry — then other Republicans on the committee — that he believes college athletes should have the same labor rights as all Americans, regardless of what they choose to do with them.

For more than two hours, around and around they all went. The Republicans are motivated to team up and push this bill forward. House Democrats, while not nearly as galvanized on these issues, often take their cues from Trahan and her staff. A partisan divide may not keep the draft from advancing in the House. But that’s only one side of the congressional equation, meaning the partisan divide, should it keep holding this way, would factor in sooner or later.