House passes Baumgartner-led bill to require universities to disclose foreign financing
WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill that would impose stricter requirements on U.S. universities to disclose foreign sources of funding, the first bill introduced by Eastern Washington’s new Republican congressman.
The bill, which passed the GOP-majority House in 2023 before stalling in a Senate that was then controlled by Democrats, was reintroduced in February by Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Spokane, the vice chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development. In an interview at the Capitol on Wednesday, Baumgartner said he cares deeply about the American university system, which he called “one of the gems of our society and culture.”
“In general, I think international collaboration between universities, it really has a lot of positive aspects to it,” he said. “The concerning part is that foreign entities, some of them with nefarious intent, have been able to access and manipulate institutions of higher education for their own strategic goals.”
Colleges and universities are required to report foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or higher. The DETERRENT Act would lower that threshold to $50,000 for most countries and to $0 for “countries and entities of concern” designated by the State Department, which include China, Russia, the Taliban and several terrorist groups.
After the bill passed by a vote of 241-169, with the support of 31 Democrats and all but one Republican, Baumgartner told The Spokesman-Review that the DETERRENT Act was “a good fit” for him to take up because of his interest in both higher education and national security. In addition to the Education and Workforce Committee, the freshman lawmaker sits on the judiciary and foreign affairs panels.
“Being a member of Congress is a lot more than just voting on any single bill, but it is very special, and it’s been an incredible first three months,” he said on the Capitol steps. “I was pleased to start with a very meaningful piece of legislation, and it was great that the committee chair and the rest of the conference and a good number of Democrats supported it and trusted me to carry this bill forward, and now it’s on to the next step.”
The bill goes to the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster and pass most legislation. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who introduced the Senate version of the bill last Congress, told The Spokesman-Review on Wednesday that he hadn’t secured any Democratic support for the legislation but intended to start trying to do so after the House passed it.
Baumgartner said he hadn’t discussed the bill specifically with either of Washington’s Democratic senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. Spokespeople for Murray and Cantwell didn’t respond to questions about the two senators’ positions on the DETERRENT Act.
Democrats who oppose the bill have argued that it would create an unworkable burden for universities and would stifle international cooperation.
Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Education and Workforce Committee, said on the House floor on Tuesday
“Since faculty really don’t know their colleagues’ citizenship status, it is reasonable to believe that discrimination will follow, and institutions will be disincentivized from hiring talented international faculty,” he said. “Present law already requires reporting of any gift large enough to exert any influence over a university. This bill, however, requires reporting of gifts of any value – this could be a cup of coffee or a donut – from people who are from so-called ‘countries of concern,’ and requires the Department of Education to process those reports.”
Critics of Baumgartner’s bill – which was introduced last Congress by former Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Calif. – also point out that it would rely on the Department of Education for its enforcement at a time when President Donald Trump is seeking to dismantle that agency. The president signed an executive order on March 20 directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to shut down the department she leads.
Baumgartner said he supports Trump’s vision of a diminished Education Department, but he thinks eliminating it altogether is unrealistic, since doing so would require Democratic support in the Senate. He suggested that his bill could be amended to assign enforcement duty to a different agency, such as the Justice Department.
When the bill passed the House in 2023, it received the same number of Democratic votes – 31 – but had no Democratic cosponsors. Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat who represents a district that spans the Cascades from Wenatchee to the Seattle suburbs, voted for the bill in 2023 but opposed it on Thursday.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who represents a Republican-leaning district in southwest Washington and voted for the bill in 2023, was one of two Democrats who co-sponsored it this year. In an interview after the vote, the second-term congresswoman likened the disclosure requirements to labeling products with their country of origin.
“I think that it’s important that there’s transparency and confidence in our public institutions,” she said. “That the quality of research, the outcomes, are not being influenced without transparency.”
Gluesenkamp Perez, who has voted with Republicans more often than most Democrats since she was first elected in 2022, said she hoped that the legislation will help restore Americans’ confidence in higher education institutions. While no study is completely free of bias, she said, increasing transparency is a logical move.
“I evaluate legislation on its merits, not the party that proposes it,” she said. “I think this is something that matters to folks in my community, and it’s important to support the ideas, and not just the partisanship.”
Tillis has yet to introduce the bill in the Senate, and it’s unclear when it could reach the floor in that chamber.
It would first need to be advanced by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, of which Murray is a member.