Congress bars human traffickers from transportation jobs permanently
S. 3109 — TRAFFIC Act of 2025 · Filed by Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Nov 5, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill permanently bars anyone convicted of human trafficking from obtaining or holding licenses and certifications for transportation jobs—including merchant seamen, locomotive operators, train conductors, commercial truck drivers, pilots, and any other transportation-related licenses issued by the Department of Transportation or Department of Homeland Security. The ban applies to federal human trafficking convictions, substantially similar state/local/tribal convictions, and covers all transportation modes.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a permanent licensing bar for human trafficking convicts across all transportation sectors. It is a straightforward public-safety measure with no hidden riders or private carve-outs.
What the text implies
- The 'substantially similar offense' language may create litigation over state/local trafficking statutes that do not perfectly mirror federal definitions, potentially leading to inconsistent enforcement across jurisdictions.
- Permanent disqualification with no provision for appeal, expungement, or rehabilitation may create collateral consequences beyond the criminal sentence itself—a lifetime bar even for convictions decades old.
- The catch-all 'other licenses, certificates, and authorizations' clause (paragraph 2) is broad enough to capture future transportation-related credentials not yet enumerated, giving agencies discretion to expand the ban without new legislation.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill restricts a narrow class of serious offenders (human trafficking convicts) from safety-sensitive transportation positions where they could exploit vulnerable people or use their access to facilitate trafficking. This protects both the public from dangerous operators and potential trafficking victims from predators in positions of trust and mobility.
Named in the bill
Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, Chapter 77 of Title 18 (human trafficking offenses), Title 46 USC (maritime law), Title 49 USC (transportation law)
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Nov 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Nov 5, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $780,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 85 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 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Marsha Blackburn, the sponsor, reported $133,620 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Trucking Associations — $720,000 on 1 filing
- Airlines for America — $60,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 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 (3,631 characters) on Aug 12, 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 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 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress bars human traffickers from transportation jobs permanently” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s3109 Report an error
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