The bill
A resolution designating the week beginning February 3, 2025, as "National Tribal Colleges and Universities Week".
SRES. 49, 119th Congress.
Sponsored by
Sen. Heinrich, Martin [D-NM]
ID: H001046
Follow the money
The bill
SRES. 49, 119th Congress.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
30 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Education" section, p. 359-361 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent. (consideration: CR S527; text: CR S525-526)
January 29, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: The full Senate will vote on whether to pass the bill.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another meaningless resolution from the esteemed members of Congress, because what's more pressing than designating a week to pat ourselves on the back for acknowledging the existence of Tribal Colleges and Universities? (Sarcasm alert)
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose of this resolution is to give our elected officials an opportunity to pretend they care about Native American education while doing absolutely nothing concrete to address the systemic issues plaguing these institutions. The objective is to create a feel-good moment, complete with photo ops and empty rhetoric.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** There are no actual provisions or changes to existing law in this resolution. It's a non-binding declaration that designates a week for "National Tribal Colleges and Universities Week." Wow, I bet the Native American community is just thrilled to have an entire week dedicated to... nothing.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include:
* Tribal Colleges and Universities: They get a nice pat on the back and some empty recognition. * Native American students: They might feel slightly better knowing that Congress acknowledges their existence, but it won't put food on the table or improve their educational outcomes. * Lobbyists and special interest groups: They'll use this resolution as a talking point to justify their own existence and secure more funding for their pet projects.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The impact of this resolution is zero. Zilch. Nada. It's a symbolic gesture that will be forgotten the moment it's passed. However, it does serve as a symptom of a larger disease: the tendency of Congress to prioritize optics over substance and to use Native American communities as props for their own self-aggrandizement.
In medical terms, this resolution is akin to prescribing a placebo to a patient with a life-threatening illness. It might make them feel slightly better in the short term, but it won't address the underlying condition. In this case, the underlying condition is the systemic neglect and underfunding of Native American education.
So, let's all take a moment to applaud Congress for their bravery in doing absolutely nothing meaningful. Bravo!
Sen. Heinrich, Martin [D-NM]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No committee contributions found
No individual contributions found
This bill has 10 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: D000618
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ID: B001230
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ID: B001261
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ID: B001267
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ID: C001096
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ID: D000563
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ID: F000463
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ID: G000574
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ID: H001042
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ID: H001061
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 89 nodes and 45 connections (85 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $174,162
Showing top 25 donors by contribution amount
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"SRES 49 recognizes Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) through a symbolic designation, which aligns with Project 2025's emphasis on supporting tribally controlled colleges as part of narrowed postsecondary funding. However, the bill does not implement structural or funding changes proposed in the policy, resulting in moderate thematic alignment without direct policy execution."
— 327 — Department of Education l Transfer the Vocational Rehabilitation Grants for Native American students to the Bureau of Indian Education. l Phase out earmarks for a variety of special institutions, as originally envisioned. l To the extent that OSERS supports federal efforts to enforce our laws against discrimination of individuals with disabilities, those assets should be moved to the Department of Justice (DOJ) along with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Office for Postsecondary Education (OPE) l The next Administration should work with Congress to eliminate or move OPE programs to ETA at the Department of Labor. l Funding to institutions should be block-granted and narrowed to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and tribally controlled colleges. l Move programs deemed important to our national security interests to the Department of State. Institute of Education Sciences (IES) l Move ED’s statistical office, the National Commission for Education Statistics (NCES), to the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau. If Congress believes the federal government can play a valuable research role, those research centers can be moved to the National Science Foundation. If Congress decides to maintain IES as an independent agency, it needs to address major governance and management issues that keep it from being a productive contributor to the knowledge base related to teaching and learning. Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) l The next Administration should completely reverse the student loan federalization of 2010 and work with Congress to spin off FSA and its student loan obligations to a new government corporation with professional governance and management. With a statutory charge that it preserve the federal student loan portfolio for the benefit of the taxpayers and students, this new entity would be (1) profession- ally governed by an agency head and board of trustees appointed by the President — 328 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise CHART 2 Trends in Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Mathematics EIGHTH-GRADE MATH, AVERAGE SCORES 300 290 280 282 274 270 260 1990 1992 1996 2000 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2022 FOURTH-GRADE MATH, AVERAGE SCORES 250 240 241 236 230 220 210 1990 1992 1996 2000 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2022 SOURCES: The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average Scores,” Grade 4, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ mathematics/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023), and The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average Scores,” Grade 8, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/mathematics/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023). A heritage.org
AI Analysis:
"SRES 49 focuses on recognizing Tribal Colleges and Universities through a symbolic designation, while the Project 2025 HHS section emphasizes healthcare reforms, conscience protections, maternal/child health, and Indian Health Service improvements. There is minimal direct overlap, though both touch on supporting Native American communities."
— 486 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 1. Investigate state medical school compliance with the Coats–Snowe Amendment,71 which prohibits discrimination against health care entities that do not provide or undergo training for abortion. 2. Ensure that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) complies with all relevant conscience statutes and regulations and that states have taken the affirmative steps (for example, by issuing regulations) to assure compliance with Coats–Snowe. 3. Communicate to medical schools that any abortion-related training must be on an opt-in rather than opt-out basis. 4. Require states that receive HHS funds to issue regulations or enter into arrangements with accrediting bodies to comply with the Coats–Snowe Amendment’s prohibition of mandatory abortion training by individuals or institutions. The Coats–Snowe Amendment specifically requires such state regulations or arrangements. l Prioritize funding for home-based childcare, not universal day care. As HRSA’s Early Childhood Health page outlines, “Currently, only about half of U.S. preschoolers are on-track with their development and ready for school. And more than one in four of children (28%) who experience abuse or neglect are under 3 years old.”72 Concurrently, children who spend significant time in day care experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, and neglect as well as poor educational and developmental outcomes. Instead of providing universal day care, funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home childcare. l Provide education and resources on early childhood health. By partnering with new organizations like the Center on Child and Family Poverty, HRSA should provide resources and information on the importance of the mother–child relationship in child well-being. This should include relationship education curricula that equip mothers and caregivers to connect with and improve their understanding of their infants, toddlers, and young children. Maternal and Child Health. Currently, the HRSA Maternal and Child Health program is collecting data on the benefits of doulas in improving the health, safety, and emotional well-being of mothers at birth. Doulas provide a patient-focused, nonmedical support system for single or married mothers that “decreases the — 487 — Department of Health and Human Services overall cesarean rate by 50%, the length of labor by 25%, the use of oxytocin by 40%, and requests for an epidural by 60%. Doulas often use the power of touch and massage to reduce stress and anxiety during labor.”73 Given concerns about maternal mortality or postpartum depression that is worsened by poor birth experiences, doulas should be an active option for all women whether they are giving birth in a traditional hospital, through midwifery, or at home. Additionally, since most Doulas’ services are not covered by traditional insurance programs, the Maternal and Child Health program should work to pro- vide funding for low-income mothers. INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE (IHS) The Indian Health Service serves our American Indian and Alaska Native popu- lations. Reforms are needed to improve America’s ability to deliver on its promises to these important populations and must take account of cultural preferences and lifestyles, limitations due to geography (such as challenging terrain), and limited Internet access. For example, contacting individuals within some of these com- munities and tribes during the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be difficult because many had transient addresses and unreliable cell service. During the transition to the Biden Administration, IHS abandoned tribes as their sources of COVID-19 tests and vaccine supplies disappeared. It is important to guard against such situations in order to preserve these tribes’ access to health resources during public health emergencies (PHEs). Even before the pandemic, services available to these populations through federal resources and personnel (such as vision care) were often scarce or nonexistent. Patients in these populations should be empowered to rely on alternatives to IHS through better access to private health care providers. Exploring positive reforms contained in the VA MISSION Act74 could reveal similar opportunities for increased options and access for American Indians and Alaska Natives. RURAL HEALTH A growing concern is the decreasing access to health care services for Americans living in rural, less populated areas. Many find themselves in regions that were not previously as rural as industries move away, taking with them economic prosperity and often medical providers. Others are in essential professions such as farming that by nature necessitate living in regions with fewer city accommodations and economic opportunities. Seeking space for one’s family and cultivating the land are valued goals that are deeply rooted in America’s fabric. Both Congress and an Administration must continually keep in mind how health care policies uniquely affect these regions because their market trends and populations are different from those of more populous regions. Often, rural patients face an hour’s drive to the nearest medical provider or facility or have
AI Analysis:
"The bill symbolically recognizes Tribal Colleges and Universities, while the Project 2025 excerpt focuses on reforming Department of Education processes such as risk‑adjusted outcome metrics, negotiated rulemaking, and federal student aid. Both touch on higher education and serving underserved students, but the bill does not implement or directly support the specific policy reforms outlined."
— 339 — Department of Education wages to account for regional differences in earnings and cost of living; and develop a reliable methodology for risk adjusting institutional and program outcomes to more accurately reflect the value added of education programs (as opposed to their admissions selectivity). Currently the Department of Education relies on graduation rates and average earnings as proxies for educational quality. Both of those outcomes, however, are highly dependent upon a student’s socioeconomic background, sex, family status, and other factors. Colleges and universities with selective admissions policies post the strongest outcomes, primarily because they admit mostly low-risk, traditional students. Open enrollment institutions post the weakest outcomes, largely because life is challenging and complicated for low-income and non-traditional students, who may be forced to drop out when a work schedule changes, a child needs more attention, or an unexpected repair or medical bill makes continuing impossible. Such confounding factors make it difficult to isolate the impact of educational qual- ity versus socioeconomic factors on student outcomes. The Department of Health and Human Services faced similar challenges in trying to evaluate healthcare out- comes since social determinants of health result in worse health outcomes among those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, have low educational attainment levels, have struggled with addiction, or have poor diet and exercise habits. Without risk adjustment of outcomes, hospitals treating wealthy patients will always appear to be delivering good care, and hospitals treating low-income patients will appear to be delivering poor care. Higher education outcomes data should be similarly “risk adjusted” to more carefully isolate the impact of educational quality versus socioeconomic status and other factors on college outcomes. Reform the Negotiated Rulemaking Process at ED The U.S. Department of Education is required by statute14 to engage in nego- tiated rulemaking prior to promulgating new regulations under Subchapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as well as Subchapters II (Teacher Quality Enhancements) and IV of the Higher Education Act of 1964 (Student Assistance). The purpose of negotiated rulemaking is to engage a committee of stakeholders early in the drafting of proposed regulations to ensure that the reg- ulation can be implemented as written, to understand any potential unintended consequences, and to seek suggestions from stakeholders on alternative solutions. The goal is for the negotiators to reach a consensus, thus smoothing the way to promulgate a new rule. Although it is helpful for the department to receive stakeholder input, the negotiated rulemaking process has become an expensive and time-consuming undertaking. Consensus is only rarely reached, enabling the department to pursue its own path. The department’s master calendar (which requires final rules to be — 340 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise published by October 1 if they are to be implemented by July 1st of the subsequent year) compounds the problem, making it unduly challenging to update regulations as needed to keep pace with changes in education, finance, accounting, pedagogy, and student assessment. In recent decades, negotiated rulemaking has become a veritable three-ring circus, replete with negotiators who use their Twitter accounts and other social media feeds during negotiations to denigrate the process and their peer negoti- ators in real time. A few Members of Congress use the public comment process to deliver political speeches, apparently to raise their own profiles but without adding any new information to the process. Some advocacy groups have latched onto the process for fundraising purposes, sometimes misrepresenting negotiation language to agitate followers and supporters and encourage them to make financial contributions. At times, the department itself has appeared to sabotage consensus, which enables them to write the regulation as they wish and without regard to the concerns raised by negotiators. l The Department of Education should work with Congress to amend the HEA to eliminate the negotiated rulemaking requirement. At a minimum, Congress should allow the department to use public hearings rather than negotiated rulemaking sessions. Reform the Office of Federal Student Aid This proposal urges the new Administration to end the abuse of FSA’s loan for- giveness programs, to manage the federal student loan portfolio in a professional way, and to work with Congress for a long-term overhaul of the program for the benefit of students and taxpayers. l The new Administration must end the prior Administration’s abuse of the agency’s payment pause and HEA loan forgiveness programs, including borrower defense to repayment, closed school discharge, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness. l The new Administration should also take immediate steps to commence the rulemaking process to rescind or substantially modify the prior Administration’s HEA regulations. l The federal government does not have the proper incentives to make sound lending decisions, so the new Administration should consider returning to a system in which private lenders, backed by government guarantees, would compete to offer student loans, including subsidized and unsubsidized, loans. This would allow for
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.