Sponsors (3)
The bill strengthens rights and evidence preservation for sexual-assault survivors and uses federal grant incentives to push States toward compliance, at the cost of added administrative/storage expenses and the risk of reduced services for residents of noncompliant States plus possible legal disputes over eligibility.
Sexual-assault survivors (particularly women) will gain stronger statutory rights including clearer notification protections and a longer window to pursue justice because forensic evidence kits must be preserved for at least 20 years.
States that adopt the required statutory protections become eligible for larger formula grant shares, creating a financial incentive and more federal funding for survivor services and criminal-justice responses.
Clarifying ambiguous language (changing 'that term' to 'request') reduces confusion for agencies and health providers, likely improving compliance with notification procedures and survivors' receipt of information.
Residents of States that do not adopt the full statutory rights may receive much smaller shares of federal victim-service funding, reducing available services for survivors in those States (disproportionately affecting low-income populations).
States may incur administrative and legal costs to revise laws, regulations, and practices to qualify for higher funding, imposing budgetary burdens on state governments and potentially taxpayers.
Requiring preservation of evidence kits for at least 20 years will raise storage, tracking, and management costs for law enforcement agencies and medical facilities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a three-tier allocation of formula-grant increases based on whether States provide survivors the rights in 18 U.S.C. § 3772 (or similar rights) and requires evidence kits be kept at least 20 years.
Introduced June 3, 2025 by Charles Ernest Grassley · Last progress June 3, 2025
Creates a three-tier system for allocating increases in certain federal formula grants to States based on whether their laws, regulations, practices, or policies provide sexual-assault survivors the rights in 18 U.S.C. § 3772 (or substantially similar rights). It directs the Attorney General to divide available increase amounts into 60% for States whose statutory law provides those rights, 25% for States that use a combination of laws/regulations/practices/policies to provide the rights, and 15% for States whose combination provides substantially similar rights, and forbids a State from qualifying for more than one tier. It also changes survivor-evidence rules by requiring that sexual-assault evidence kits be preserved for at least 20 years and clarifies statutory language by replacing an undefined phrase with the word “request.”