Trey’s Law: A National Reckoning with Cover-Up Culture
Texas lawmakers and survivor advocates built the blueprint for ending NDAs and forcing institutional accountability, and now it’s headed to Congress.
Written By Ron Bloomingkemper Jr.
The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas.
That line already means Friday night football, slow-smoked barbecue, and Texas pride. Now add this to the list: Texas is becoming a shining star in one of the darkest fights in America, exposing institutional sexual abuse and the systems built to hide it.
Because there may be no darker place on earth than a trusted institution protecting predators while telling victims to stay quiet “for the good of the mission.”
In Texas, the stars are shining bright.
Courage is contagious, but only when it’s seen. When survivors speak, reporters dig, and lawmakers act, you don’t just get awareness. You get convergence, a working model. And Texas is building it right now, with survivors, advocates, and lawmakers forming something the rest of the nation can follow.
That model came into sharper focus when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz retweeted the Shawn Ryan Show episode featuring Texas survivor advocate Elizabeth Phillips and her fight for Trey’s Law.
“Ted Cruz called the interview “a must- watch” and wrote: “Horrific. I’m going to be introducing Trey’s Law in Congress.”
Cruz just nationalized the fight against cover-up culture.
Elizabeth Phillips is a Texas survivor advocate whose fight for reform helped drive Trey’s Law, legislation designed to strip institutions of one of their favorite tools: NDAs and confidentiality agreements that keep abuse buried and survivors silenced.
Let’s be blunt: NDAs don’t protect victims. They protect institutions. As Phillips has said, “confidentiality is not justice, it’s camouflage.”
State Rep. Mitch Little, a rising star, turns survivor testimony into enforceable legislation.
Little put it plainly: “Silence is no longer for sale in Texas.” He co-sponsored Trey’s Law alongside Sen. Angela Paxton and Rep. Jeff Leach, which passed unanimously. He also authored HB 4623, holding public school districts civilly liable for sexual misconduct and failure to report suspected child abuse. Both bills were signed by Gov. Abbott and are now Texas law.
Cover-ups aren’t misunderstandings. They’re intentional strategies. And strategies don’t shift because institutions apologize. They shift when the rules change.
Texas is showing the country how to do that, and it isn’t limited to one camp, one ministry, or one school district. It’s about dismantling the machinery of cover-up: confidential settlements, quiet payouts, and “internal investigations” designed to protect institutions instead of victims.
Right here in Texas, NBC News’ “Pastors and Prey” series has exposed institutional cover-up in the Assemblies of God and their Chi Alpha campus ministry. Predators don’t care if a building has stained glass.
Pastors and Prey A yearlong NBC News investigation exposed decades of sex abuse and cover-ups in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, triggering a pastor’s arrest and calls for reforms to protect children.
This fight doesn’t stop at state lines. Predators and cover-up systems migrate, and Cruz taking Trey’s Law to Congress turns the Texas blueprint into a national standard.
Abuse survivors describe a familiar playbook:
grooming,
manipulation,
intimidation,
retaliation,
and leadership dodging accountability when consequences arrive.
“Without transparency and public accountability, predators don’t lose access, they just change zip codes.”
In the Chi Alpha abuse case, church leaders were warned years (decades) in advance and placed their own pastors under restrictive NDAs to force them into silence. Nothing provoked action until survivors went public, the news media got involved, and lawsuits made silence impossible.
Texas has already shown what works: remove secrecy, increase liability, and force transparency.
Now Congress needs to follow suit.
If Cruz introduces Trey’s Law, it should move fast, and every member should be required to answer one simple question: Are you on the side of survivors, or the side of silence?
No more NDAs. No more one-sided confidential settlements that protect institutions. No more “internal investigations” that lead nowhere. Make the cover-up expensive.
Stop buying silence. Stop punishing whistleblowers. Stop protecting reputations. Start protecting children.
Ron Bloomingkemper Jr. is a writer, graphic designer, and founder of Wrestling Lions Media, an educational and advocacy organization confronting spiritual and sexual abuse in Christian campus ministries. A survivor who helped expose one of the largest abuse scandals in Assemblies of God history, he equips students, parents, and leaders with practical tools to recognize, resist, and report high-control religious systems.
