Texas lawmakers hear powerful testimony in bill related to ex-Gateway pastor
A woman who says the founding pastor of Southlake-based Gateway Church abused her as a child and others whose lives have been affected by sexual abuse shared their stories with lawmakers on Thursday, May 8, as members of the Legislature weigh whether to extend a proposed restriction on nondisclosure agreements in child sexual abuse cases to adults.
A panel of senators was considering two versions of “Trey’s Law” concurrently during the Thursday State Affairs Committee hearing.
The legislation is named after Trey Carlock, who was subject to a NDA and died by suicide in 2019 after being sexually abused by a Missouri summer camp director, according to his sister, Elizabeth Phillips of Dallas.
NDAs have many legitimate uses in business, but the agreements have also been used to silence childhood sexual abuse, said Sen. Angela Paxton, a McKinney Republican who authored the Senate version of the policy.
“This perverse application in such cases protects predators and the youth-serving organizations or religious institutions whose negligence actually enabled the abuse, and it further exploits the victims,” Paxton said.
The Senate version of the proposal, S.B. 835, prohibits the use of NDAs when the agreement bars a person who was sexually abused from speaking out about their abuse. Paxton said her bill is identical to the House version, H.B. 748, with one exception: The House bill applies to all people who’ve experienced abuse, regardless of age.
The text of the latest version of Paxton’s bill was not immediately available.
Both versions of the legislation were left pending in the Senate committee.
“My exposure and introduction to this issue was in the context of, specifically, child sexual abuse, and that has been the interaction that I have had with victims as I’ve done my research on this bill,” Paxton said. “But I appreciate very much what the House bill does.”
She added that the inclusion of all ages in the bill “is worth our consideration as well.”
Cindy Clemishire told lawmakers she was groomed and abused by ex-Gateway Church lead pastor Robert Morris beginning when she was 12. Morris was indicted March 12 on five counts related to the sexual abuse of a child.
Morris resigned from Gateway in June 2024 after Clemishire publicly accused him of sexually abusing her in the 1980s.
“When Robert finished his first assault on me, the very first thing he said to me, and I quote, ‘You can never tell anyone, because it will ruin everything,’” Clemishire said.
While seeking financial restitution two decades later to cover the costs of counseling, Clemishire said she was asked to sign an NDA, which she refused.
“NDAs may be presented as legal formalities, but in cases like mine, they are tools that continue the abuse,” Clemishire said. “They protect the abuser and keep victims in shame.”
She told the Senate panel the only way to prevent child sexual abuse is to speak about and expose it.
“So I leave you with this,” Clemishire said, concluding her testimony. “Anyone who doesn’t support this bill or waters it down or prevents it from being passed, we should be asking: Who are they trying to protect?”
Phillips shared her brother’s story with the lawmakers as well as her own.
“My focus and work is on the prevention of institutional child sexual abuse, so I support both bills that give victims their voices back,” Phillips said. “But I must emphasize that H.B. 748 is the strongest version of Trey’s Law.”
Texas can decide whether to lead or follow, she said.
“I am myself a survivor of a sexual assault in college, and that’s the first time I’m saying this publicly,” Phillips said. “I was a college kid when I endured that, so I personally feel strongly that the abuse of NDAs in any civil cases pertaining to sexual assault should be banned by law.”
Ahead of the hearing in the Senate State Affairs committee, Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who authored the House version of the bill, said he’d received “indications” that the Senate may consider a “weaker version” of the bill. Leach said he was working to confirm whether that was true.
Considering a “weaker version” of the legislation is unacceptable, he said.
In response, Leach canceled a Thursday morning meeting of the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, which he chairs. The committee was scheduled to hear five Senate bills.
“If the Senate treats Trey’s Law with the care that I believe that it deserves and quickly advances our bill without weakening it, then I’d be happy to and eager to reschedule these Senate bills and possibly other Senate bills for a hearing on Friday morning or even Saturday morning with this committee,” Leach said.
After the Senate hearing finished, Leach said the Senate bills on the canceled agenda will be heard Monday.
“The Senate, I believe, is working in good faith with us to advance Trey’s Law,” Leach said in an interview.
The House sent the Senate “one of nation’s the strongest protections for victims and survivors of sexual abuse and assault,” Leach said. There’s time left in the session, which ends June 2, to get the policy to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, Leach said.
“My hope and expectation is that the Senate is going to stand in solidarity with those victims along with us,” Leach said. “I’m excited to see what they do, and hope we can work together to get this to the governor’s desk as soon as possible.”
At this point in the session, “people get emotional” and “people have a lot of ownership in their bills,” Paxton said in an interview, adding that her focus has been on the Thursday hearing.
The bills are virtually the same, except for the age provision, Paxton said, adding that while it’s an “important nuance,” she’s confident lawmakers will be doing something good to help those who were abused.
“I’ll be having conversations with my colleagues to see what they think,” Paxton said in an interview after the hearing ended. “I don’t see any reason to have an age limit on it myself, but … I’m one vote, so we’ll see how it goes. But I think the hearing went very, very well. The essence of this is that an NDA is an unacceptable vehicle for these kinds of cases. So, I’m excited about where the bill is going and feel very encouraged.”
At the end of the day, the inner chamber battles that happen at the Capitol are inside baseball that ultimately don’t matter as long as the work gets done, Leach said.
“What matters is us delivering to the people, and Senator Paxton and I are both committed,” Leach said.
This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 1:56 PM.
