Over 285 women state legislators including nine in New Mexico have signed a letter to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson urging him to remove a provision in a bill that would shield rideshare companies from liability of harm, including sexual assault.
Amendment 41 is included in the BUILD (Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America) 250 Act, which New Mexico Rep. Marianna Anaya (D-Albuquerque) said was supposed to be a celebration of America’s birthday.
“I was thinking about it, how ironic it is that for America's 250th birthday, Congress, you know, presents this amendment that says ‘Let's celebrate the U.S.'s birthday by limiting corporate accountability.’ I thought, ‘What is more American than that?’” she said.
If passed, the amendment would limit the liability of rideshare companies for negligence or criminal acts by their drivers. Critics argue that this amendment prevents survivors of sexual assault from suing and makes it nearly impossible to hold companies accountable.
During a full committee markup in May, Rep. Vince Frong (R-Calif.) said the amendment guards against abusive litigation affecting rideshare companies regarding insurance coverage, but does not eliminate accountability.
In 2025, a New York Times investigation found around 400,000 reports of sexual assault tied to Uber trips from 2017 through 2022. Anaya said this is a stark contrast to Uber reporting only around 12,000
“They had developed safety tools to prevent sexual assaults from happening. So at some point they knew that this was a problem, they developed safety tools, and then they failed to deploy those tools,’ she said.
Anaya said she’s worked with a lot of sexual assault survivors through legislation and that its incredibly hard for victims to go through the court process.
“Oftentimes survivors themselves are not believed, or they don't come forward because they believe that they may not be taken seriously. Coming up with evidence for a sexual assault is not easy, and that's even in addition to being re-traumatized by needing to tell your story multiple times, going through a process where you're scrutinized, you’re put up on the stand, your were being questioned about one of the most horrific things that could have possibly happened to you,” she said.
The Democratic Women’s Caucus in Congress sent a similar letter to Speaker Johnson, as did over 1900 sexual assault survivors. Anaya said that if Congress doesn’t strike this amendment, it’s a slap in the face to all the survivors.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
