A woman was sexually abused at age 12 by her teacher and soccer coach. Thirteen years later, he hauled her back into court to argue he had "moved on" and deserved to be free of supervision. Then he tried again the following year. The House of Representatives just voted 435 to zero to make sure that never happens to anyone again.
What the Bill Actually Does
Kayleigh's Law, formally the Kayleigh's Law Act of 2026 and introduced as H.R. 8481 by Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz., passed the House unanimously on Monday and now heads to the Senate. The legislation requires federal courts to issue lifetime no-contact orders against anyone convicted of federal sex crimes or violent felonies. Not temporary orders. Not orders that expire when probation ends. Lifetime.
Under current law, a convicted predator can petition a court to lift a no-contact order once their supervised release ends, which means survivors can be forced back into a courtroom to sit across from the person who abused them and argue, again, why they deserve to feel safe. Kayleigh's Law would close that door permanently. According to Fox News, the bill prohibits any contact, direct or indirect, for the remainder of the offender's life, full stop.
The Woman the Law Is Named After
Kayleigh Kozak is an Arizona mother of five. She was twelve years old when Joshua Jacobsen, a teacher and soccer coach, sexually abused her. He pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and luring a minor for sexual exploitation, and received six months in jail plus lifetime probation, according to Fox News.
Nearly two decades later, Jacobsen petitioned a Maricopa County judge to end that probation, arguing, per the reporting, that his behavior over the previous 18 years proved he had reformed. Kozak had to go back to court to fight it. "I am living proof that he is capable of sexually harming children," she told the court. "He consciously chose to violate me."
Jacobsen lost. According to Arizona's Family, a Maricopa County judge denied his request in June after finding he had violated probation multiple times, including unauthorized contact with children and breaches of chaperone restrictions. He remains on lifetime probation under county supervision. But the point is that Kozak had to show up. Twice. To defend her own protection.
A Promise Made Outside an In-N-Out
Hamadeh met Kozak roughly five years ago while he was running for Arizona attorney general. The friendship continued, and according to Fox News, when Hamadeh was campaigning for Congress, the two met outside an In-N-Out Burger, where he made her a direct promise: the moment he got to Congress, Kayleigh's Law would be one of his first bills.
"Promise made, promise kept," Hamadeh said after the vote. Kozak and her children were at the Capitol to watch it happen. That's the kind of story that lands differently than the usual legislative press release, and it's worth sitting with for a second, because the alternative was no bill, no vote, and Kozak perpetually one court filing away from having to face her abuser again.
Versions of Kayleigh's Law have already passed in Arizona and Wisconsin. Hamadeh's office says more than 1,000 Arizona survivors secured lifetime protection in the state law's first year alone.
Why 435-0 Deserves a Moment
Congress votes unanimously on almost nothing. The current House cannot agree on what day of the week it is without fracturing along tribal lines. So when every single member, across every faction, from the far right to the progressive caucus, raises their hand for the same bill, it is either a sign the legislation is genuinely common sense or a sign that literally no one wants to be the person on record defending sex offenders' right to keep pestering their victims in court.
In this case, it appears to be both. "This is a common-sense type of bill where we're supporting victims, and we're prioritizing victims over criminals," Hamadeh told Fox News Digital. Hard to argue with that. Nobody did.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where Hamadeh is urging swift action. Given the unanimous House vote and the straightforward nature of the legislation, there is no obvious political reason for the Senate to drag its feet, though the Senate has never needed an obvious reason to drag its feet on anything.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe the American legislative process is too broken, too tribal, and too captured by special interests to do anything useful. And mostly, honestly, that belief is well-earned. But every once in a while, 435 people agree that a woman should not have to sit across a courtroom from the man who raped her when she was twelve just because a calendar flipped and his probation ran out. That happened Monday. It should have happened years ago, but it happened.
The fact that this gap existed at all is the part that should make you furious. Somewhere, at some point, a legal framework was designed in which a convicted predator retained the right to petition for relief from the one protection his victim had, repeatedly, on an open-ended timeline, forever. Nobody drew up that system maliciously. But nobody fixed it either, until Kayleigh Kozak drove to an In-N-Out Burger and made a politician make her a promise.
The Senate needs to pass this thing clean and fast, with no amendments, no poison pills, and no procedural games. It passed the House 435 to zero. There is no constituency for letting convicted child sex offenders haul their victims back into court. If this bill stalls in the Senate for any reason other than a scheduling backlog, somebody needs to be asked, loudly and repeatedly, exactly why.
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