Zwiener hits ground running

Editor’s Note: This is the first of two articles about legislation that Texas House District 45’s new representative, Erin Zwiener (D-Driftwood), has proposed. 

Erin Zwiener, the first-time state representative for Texas House District 45, has filed more than two dozen bills since she took her oath of office. Her proposed legislation includes measures to increase voter participation, change how sexual harassment in the workplace is handled and improve the documentation of sexual assault cases. 

Election law

House Bill 1950 would allow student identification from public universities to serve as adequate identification at the voting booth.

“What I never want to happen is I never want a first-time voter, or would-be first-time voter, to show up at the polls, be turned away and not come back,” Zwiener said.

She said that when people start voting young, they become lifelong voters, and encouraging participation could help with Texas’ abysmal voter turnout rate. (According to the Pew Trusts, in the 2014 midterms Texas’ voter turnout was approximately 28.9 percent.)

“Texas can do better than that,” Zwiener said.

She noted that students who live on campus or depend on public transportation to get to and from class do not always carry driver’s licenses. Allowing the use of all state-issued IDs, including public university IDs, to be used as identification for voting would help increase voter turnout, she said.

“I am right now in conversation with some of my Republican colleagues … about if there are any parameters we could put on this that would make them more comfortable,” she said, adding that she hopes the legislation gets a hearing.

Another of Zwiener’s bills, HB 2276, would eliminate the five-day period for public notice of the time for voting at an early voting location. Zwiener said the bill was inspired specifically by what happened in Hays County during the 2018 midterm election, when the county was threatened with a lawsuit if it did not extend early voting at the polling location on the Texas State University campus. The commissioners voted to extend early voting but had to give a certain amount of public notice before early voting could resume at the selected locations.

Zwiener said that she agrees that public notice is important, but, “We think that five-day period doesn’t serve any public good.”

Sexual harassment

Zwiener is also working to extend the time period for reporting workplace sexual harassment to the Texas Workforce Commission and to make sexual harassment protections available to more Texas workers.

HB 2278 would give victims of workplace sexual harassment two full years to file a complaint.

“Right now in Texas, you only have 180 days to report a sexual harassment complaint to the Texas Workforce Commission,” she said, noting that the rule applies even at the Capitol.

“I know how difficult it can be to make the decision about whether you should report it,” Zwiener said. She said she has experienced workplace sexual harassment and knows that victims often ask themselves if reporting it is worth it, if there might be retaliation, if the complaint will result in being fired or if the complaint will be taken seriously.

“Because of those inherent challenges … folks need a longer window to come forward,” she said.

Zwiener said that Rep. Victoria Naeve has proposed a similar bill that extends the reporting period to 300 days, which matches the statute of limitations in some other states. Zwiener said her office is talking with Naeve’s office about the similar pieces of legislation.

Zwiener has also proposed HB 2279, which she said Sen. Judith Zaffirini is carrying in the Senate and which would expand sexual harassment protections.

“Right now, Texas does the federal minimum,” Zwiener said. “We apply sexual harassment protections to companies with 15 or more employees.”

That covers fewer and fewer companies, Zwiener said, as more companies hire contractors instead of employees. Moreover, she said, a worker can experience sexual harassment at a company of any size.

“I believe every Texas worker deserves those protections,” she said, noting that small businesses that currently fall outside those protections are in “environments where we know sexual harassment is common.”

Zaffirini’s version of the bill in the Senate is Senate Bill 46.

Sexual assault cases

Zwiener’s House Bill 2678 would allow researchers access to anonymous data from forensic exams performed after sexual assaults even if the victim has not reported the assault to law enforcement.

“This allows the evidence to be collected and for them to hit a pause button,” she said, before they figure out whether they want to go forward with a report to law enforcement. 

Researchers would have access to the information to better understand the prevalence of sexual assault, Zwiener said.

Another bill, HB 2672, would require the Department of Public Safety to compile data on the attrition of sexual assault cases. Zwiener said DPS would keep track of how many cases are referred for prosecution and, of those, how many go forward to active prosecution in court.

“The reason for trying to compile that data … is so that researchers can look into the whys and figure out why some of these cases are falling through the cracks,” she said.