Chapter 3

Representative Laurie H. Wright, (D IL-21), Sunday, September 5, 2010.

Campaign season is always hectic, especially this year with that Tea Party whack job breathing down my neck, but I always make time out on Sunday mornings for breakfast with my husband, Joe, and my younger son, Austin. Austin was flipping through the channels while I made waffles. I was halfway listening when something on CNN caught my ear.

"A group of Texas teenagers who protested topless against a football player they accused of raping them have all been suspended from school."

"Austin, turn that up,"

"OK mom."

"Two of the girls say they reported their rapes and were dismissed by local law enforcement. They are joining with other alleged rape victims to sue the state of Texas for violating their civil rights."

The report finished just as we sat down to eat.

"I can't believe that would happen in this day and age." I said.

"Well, you know Texas can be a little behind the times." Joe said.

"That kind of stuff happens here too," Austin protested, "Eli Chan down the street said his sister Danielle was raped when she was in The Program and the school didn't do anything because they didn't want The Program to get in trouble. That's why his parents won't let him do The Program."

By this point I was getting angry. "That's intolerable, when we finish eating I'm going to call the office and see if they'd heard anything more about this."

It turned out they'd had. "We've had a couple of constituents email and say they've been raped and are scared to report it."

"What are you telling them?"

"When everyone gets in the office on Monday we're going to give the local DA's a heads up and tell them who to get in contact with. Honestly there's not much we can do. It's very difficult to get a conviction for date rape, and that's the majority of cases."

"Well, tell them I'll be introducing legislation to make it harder for prosecutors to dismiss rape charges. And call around to see who else is getting these emails."

"Yes ma'am."

My next call was to Arthur Tillman, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

"Arthur, this is Laurie Wright. Have you heard about this rape case in Texas?"

"Yes, Bobby Witt was raising a big stink about it. He wants to hold hearings about it after the election. If his side does as well as they're supposed to, I might have to let him."

"I want the hearings to start tomorrow."

"Laurie, I can't call people back to Washington in the middle of a campaign season this rough."

"Do you really want to hand Bobby Witt the momentum on this? Besides, we'll do better in the elections if we spend the week tackling an endemic rape crisis than if we shake another thousand people's hands."

"Ok, but you'd better hope these girls turn out to be credible."

"Somehow, I'm afraid they will."

I decided to call Bobby Witt next. We decided that we were both amenable to legislation that would mandate reporting of reported and prosecuted rape cases and allow the DOJ to intervene when there was an unusual discrepancy. We would start emergency hearings on Monday and hope to have a bill in the hopper by the end of the weak, and on the President's desk by election day. I started calling around for co-sponsors in the car between my six campaign stops of the day.