Wendy Davis is proposing an end to the statute of limitations on sexual assault in the State of Texas.
Davis, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate locked in a heated campaign with Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, proposed abolishing the statute on Wednesday, as part of an aggressive move against her opponent.
In most cases, state law in Texas prohibits prosecution for rape that occurred more than ten years ago. Davis listed a number of cases where victims were no longer able to seek justice because the deadline had expired.
Davis pointed to an ongoing issue with a backlog of rape kits in Texas as part of the problem (there is an estimated backlog of 20,000 kits currently). “The fact that we would throw survivors’ trauma and courage on a shelf for months or years without a second thought is offensive to them and to everything we say we stand for,” Davis said at a news conference Wednesday. “But then to turn around and make survivors pay the price for our failure and neglect by denying them justice is almost criminal in itself.”
Davis is also running an which attacks Abbott for his siding with a vacuum cleaner company in the case of a rape victim, according to Talking Points:
The ad, which goes for a little over a minute, tells the story of a woman who was brutally raped by a vacuum cleaner salesman. The woman, the ad says, went to court against the vacuum cleaner distributor for failing to do a background check on the salesman. The state Supreme Court sided with the woman 6-3 with Abbott on the losing end.
“Six judges, Democrats and Republicans, ruled in their favor and they won,” the narrator in the ad said. “But Greg Abbott sided with the company against the victim, saying that the company against the victim saying that the company had no responsibility. “Thank god this time Greg Abbott lost,” the narrator in the ad said.
So how is this tactic working for Davis? According to a Rasmussen poll in August, she’s still lagging behind Abbott, but not by the huge double digit margin so many in Texas had predicted.
A new Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Texas Voters finds Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott picking up 48% of the vote to Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis’ 40%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate in the race, while nine percent (9%) are undecided.
Conservatives dubbed Davis “abortion Barbie” because she dared challenge hideous legislation that has all but destroyed access to reproductive options for impoverished women in the state. So yeah. Vote Wendy Davis, y’all.
