Federal money helps police solve old crimes using DNA and family trees.
S. 1890 — Carla Walker Act · Filed by John Cornyn (R-TX) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced May 22, 2025 · Passed chamber
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What it does
The bill gives $10 million per year from 2027 to 2031. Police, prosecutors, medical examiners, and coroners get this money. They use it to match crime-scene DNA against public family-tree sites. This helps solve old cases and identify remains. Police must tell the sites who they are. They cannot arrest based only on a DNA match. They must ask family members first. They cannot use DNA for health reasons.
Who it affects
Police, prosecutors, medical examiners, and coroners can use this money. People whose DNA is in public family-tree sites may be contacted. The sites must tell users when police search them.
One thing to notice
Police cannot arrest someone based only on a DNA match. Police must ask family members before using their DNA.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- May 22, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- May 22, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
- May 14, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on the Judiciary. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably”
- Jun 10, 2026 — Passed the Senate · Congress.gov: “Passed Senate with an amendment by Voice Vote. (consideration: CR S2724-2727; text of amendment in the nature…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $50,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 10 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
John Cornyn, who sponsored the bill, received $2,071,484 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Sergeants Benevolent Association of New York City — $40,000 in 1 report
- Signature Science LLC — $10,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- crime-scene DNA — DNA found at the place where a crime happened.
- family-tree sites — Websites where people share family history and DNA results.
- medical examiners — Doctors who figure out how people died.
- coroners — Officials who investigate deaths and identify remains.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (15,420 characters) on Jul 9, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,522 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 Jun 2026 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-21.
“Federal money helps police solve old crimes using DNA and family trees.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1890/simple Report an error