If you doubt that you can make a real difference in today's polarized political landscape, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen wants you to meet Amanda Nguyen.After she was sexually assaulted as a college student, Nguyen was faced with navigating a nightmare system that she's described as "worse than the rape itself."While the state where the assault occurred provides survivors with a 15-year window to decide whether to pursue criminal charges, laws allow untested rape kits to be destroyed after six months. Nguyen discovered she would have to go through a bureaucratic maze twice a year just to have the evidence from the crime preserved."She got outraged about that and started coming to offices in the Senate to see who might be willing to help her," Shaheen recalled. "We were pleased that she knocked on our door, and when we heard her story, we said, 'You’re absolutely right, that’s not right, we need to do something about that.'"Shaheen worked with Nguyen, founder of the advocacy group Rise , to introduce the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act. The legislation aims to establish basic standards for how we should treat survivors of assault , including guidelines on how to maintain evidence related to sexual assault cases.The proposal passed the U.S. Senate unanimously in May as part of another piece of legislation, and cleared a major hurdle in the U.S. House just last week."I think that’s a great example of the fact that an individual can make a difference," Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, told Refinery29.Shaheen spoke to Refinery29 from Washington about the legislation, a new push to recognize the contribution women have made to the country, and how we can get more women to run for office."One of the things we know is that sexual assault is one of the most underreported and under-punished crimes. I think there are a number of reasons for that, but one of the unfortunate reasons is because those people who are victims of sexual assault often find the criminal justice system — that it’s not very friendly and supportive of trying to get justice for them."The legislation that we worked on is an effort to make the system work better for victims of sexual assault. There are some basic supports that every survivor of sexual assault ought to be entitled to. They ought to be able to know what’s available to them; they ought to be able to get the results of the rape kit; that testing should be able to be done for them. The rape kit should be preserved for the same amount of time as the statute of limitations on sexual assault, and they should be able to access the results of any analysis.