Congress gives people with urgent medical needs a right to restrooms
H.R. 3299 — Restroom Access Act of 2025 · Filed by Eleanor Norton (D-DC) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced May 8, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires retail stores with employee restrooms to allow customers with certain medical conditions—including inflammatory bowel disease, ostomy use, and pregnancy—to use those private restrooms during business hours if the customer has a government-issued medical ID card, at least two employees are present, no public restroom is available, and access poses no safety risk. The Department of Labor will issue the ID cards within 180 days.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward access right for people with documented medical conditions. It is a public-health and dignity measure, not a regulatory carve-out, subsidy, or procedural maneuver.
What the text implies
- Retail establishments may face modest operational friction (staff time to verify ID, manage access) but no explicit liability shield is provided; establishments remain subject to existing ADA and state accommodation law.
- The 180-day timeline for DOL to establish the ID card system may create a gap between enactment and implementation; the bill does not specify what happens during that period or whether retailers must comply before cards are issued.
- Definition of 'eligible medical condition' includes 'any other diagnosed medical condition' plus pregnancy, which is broad; implementation will depend on how strictly medical professionals and retailers interpret 'immediate access' and 'diagnosed'.
- No explicit enforcement mechanism, penalty, or private right of action is stated; compliance may depend on DOL guidance and state/local enforcement, creating potential unevenness across jurisdictions.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary people with inflammatory bowel disease, ostomy devices, pregnancy, and other urgent medical conditions gain a concrete right to access restrooms when public facilities are unavailable, reducing humiliation, health risk, and social exclusion. The conditions for access are reasonable (ID card, two employees present, no safety risk, no public alternative) and do not impose unreasonable burden on retail establishments.
Named in the bill
Department of Labor, retail establishments, medical professionals (physicians, naturopathic physicians, physician assistants, nurses, nurse prac
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Democrats.
- May 8, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 8, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $100,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 8 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Eleanor Norton, the sponsor, reported $12,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Infin, a Financial Services Alliance (f/k/a Financial Service Centers America) — $100,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 16, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,010 characters) on Aug 24, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress gives people with urgent medical needs a right to restrooms” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr3299 Report an error
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