AUSTIN _ A powerful North Texas lawmaker is throwing down the gauntlet with state senators over his proposed ban on using nondisclosure agreements to silence victims in sexual assault and trafficking cases.
Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, is bottling up Senate bills in his committee until the chamber proves it won’t weaken or kill his legislation, which was inspired by church sex abuse scandals that recently came to light.
“I will use every tool in my toolbox to make sure the strongest possible version of this bill es,” Leach, the House Criminal Jurisprudence chairman, told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday. “The House is not interested in anything weaker than what we got ed.”
Among cases that prompted his House Bill 748, known as “Trey’s Law,” was that of a Southlake megachurch pastor Robert Morris who was recently indicted in connection to raping a child in the 1980s.
Cindy Clemishire, who publicly accused the Gateway Church founder of abusing her from the ages of 12 to 17, testified in of the bill. Morris is expected to have his initial court appearance in Oklahoma on Friday in connection to the allegations.
The legislation would forbid non-disclosure agreements from being used to prevent a victim of sexual abuse, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault or human trafficking from disclosing their abuse to others.
The agreements, known as NDAs, often force victims to stay silent for the rest of their lives about their abuse, advocates for survivors say. They’re often required in exchange for settling out of court, an option many victims prefer so they don’t have to detail their abuse in a public trial.
Leach’s initial effort restricted such a ban on NDAs to cases involving minors. After committee testimony, the bill was expanded to include all sex assault and trafficking victims — and that stronger version ed the House with a resounding 148-0 vote.
Then the Collin County lawmaker, after watching his bill wait weeks for a Senate hearing, learned Wednesday evening that the Senate State Affairs Committee was planning to consider not only the House bill but also the more narrow version that only applies to child sex abuse.
In response, Leach canceled a hearing by his own committee on five Senate bills previously scheduled for the next morning as a way to turn up the heat.
“If the Senate treats Trey’s Law with the care that I believe that it deserves and quickly advances our bill without weakening it, then I’d be happy and eager to reschedule these Senate bills and possibly other Senate bills,” Leach announced when canceling his hearing.
During the Thursday committee hearing in the Senate, Sen. Angela Paxton, R-MicKinney, laid out both versions of the legislation, explaining that restricting the ban to cases involving childhood sexual assault was only a starting point.
“My exposure and introduction to this issue was in the context of specifically child sexual abuse, and that has been the interaction that I have had with victims as I’ve done my research on this bill,” Paxton said. “But I appreciate very much what the House bill does now… and I think this is worth our consideration as well.”
The bill was left pending Thursday afternoon without a vote. The Senate has three more weeks to bills.
Leach said he suspects that “dark forces” were working to keep the stronger version from ing – or any version at all from ing before legislative deadlines kill it. Still, several senators seem ive of his efforts to move the strongest version of the bill to the floor as soon as possible, he said.
The legislation must the Senate committee, and then it’s up to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on whether to set it for a floor vote. A texted request for comment to Patrick’s media was not returned.
“I’ve had a number of conversations with folks on the other side of the building (in the Texas Senate), and I have yet to get a single reasonable or acceptable justification for why the bill is being watered down or why the bill is being slowed down,” Leach told The News on Thursday.
The uncertainty of the future and shape the bill might take prompted longtime victims advocate Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, the sister of the bill’s namesake, to disclose during her testimony Thursday at the Capitol that she was also the victim of sexual abuse in college.
She asked the committee to push either bill through as quickly as possible to avoid getting caught behind legislative deadlines – but urged them to the House version that broadened protections to all victims.
“I am myself a survivor of a sexual assault in college, and that’s the first time I’m saying this publicly,” she told senators. “I was a college kid when I endured that, so I personally feel strongly that the abuse of NDAs in any civil cases pertaining to sexual assault should be banned by law, and whomever opposes that has something to hide.”
After the hearing, Phillips told The News that she had been considering telling her own story after becoming inspired by victims she has worked to help. But she decided to do it Thursday after hearing that the scope of the bill might be narrowed to exclude vulnerable young college students like her — who was attacked at age 21, “before I had fully matured and grown into my voice.”
“Even though I’ve testified in many hearings, today carries so much weight,” she said. “This testimony really matters today, and I know we won’t have another hearing this session.”