Supporting Survivors of Sexual Assault
Donna was appalled to learn of the dismal record of the criminal justice system when it comes to addressing sexual violence. When a constituent first came to her with a story of long delays with her sexual assault evidence being processed, she set about learning how to improve the system, and hasn’t stopped since.
She has utilized her position on the Appropriations Committee to infuse tens of millions of targeted investments into the state budget, building out long term capabilities to expand capacity for processing these cases.
She has passed bipartisan legislation, establishing the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Task Force, and another ensuring that Texas survivors of campus sexual assault would still have recourse and care in the absence of federal action. While Donna’s name may be on these bills, this is progress every Texan can be proud of.
What Donna’s Been Doing:
Donna’s legislation creating a Sexual Assault Survivors’ Task Force has been hailed as a national model, and finally pulls together the many stakeholders and agencies tasked with caring for survivors and pursuing justice.
In 2017, passed a bill requiring the state to establish a system to track the progress of sexual assault forensic evidence and allow survivors to track its progress through the criminal justice system, to provide assurance and accountability.
Passed a $2 million budget rider in 2015 to establish the Forensic Nursing Program at TAMU-Health Science Center.
Allocated $6 million in grants to hospitals to establish or maintain Sexual Assault Forensic Exam-Ready facilities.
Passed a rider allocating $51.6 million towards building out the Dept. of Public Safety’s capabilities for processing Sexual Assault Kits.
Added $1.8 million to the state budget for Sam Houston State to improve training and assistance with efficient toxicology forensics, and $5 million for the University of North Texas to train a pipeline of future lab techs and augment the state’s immediate capacity for testing.