Alliance for Child Vic Act
ALBANY — An upstate investor who is a child sex abuse victim and a prominent Democratic women's organization have teamed up to try to flip the state Senate to the Dems in hopes of passing a bill that would make it easier for survivors to seek justice as adults.
Gary Greenberg (photo) — who in 2016 created the Fighting for Children political action committee to help push for passage of the Child Victims Act — and Eleanor's Legacy have begun holding rallies in support of female Democratic state Senate candidates.
The next one is Thursday in Dutchess County for Karen Smythe, who is taking on incumbent Republican Sen. Sue Serino.
Eleanor's Legacy was created in 2001 to help elect Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights in New York.
“We have always considered the critical issue of women's reproductive justice to be linked to the equally important issues surrounding the Child Victims Act,” said Eleanor's Legacy President Brette McSweeney. “Both represent our continued struggles to make New York more inclusive and just, and both of these issues represent struggles for protection and dignity that have been long neglected by Senate Republicans.”
Greenberg said the coupling of Eleanor's Legacy with his Fighting for Children PAC “is just another notch up in the effort to get (passage of the Child Victims Act) done.”
Eleanor's Legacy's the Baker Project and the Fighting for Children PAC will hold press conferences, rallies and round tables for female Senate candidates across the state.
The first event was last Thursday in Nassau County, where Democrat Anna Kaplan is challenging incumbent GOP Sen. Elaine Phillips.
Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif had no comment on the new alliance. But a spokeswoman said a day earlier that Senate Republicans “want to find a solution to bring justice for victims of child abuse, which is why we put forward many pieces of legislation to address both criminal and civil complaints, and while we are out of session this important issue should not be used as a political football."
Greenberg during this year's legislative session angered many other activists by hiring a Republican lobbyist and working with Sen. Catharine Young (R-Chautauqua County) on an alternate bill to create a a $300 million Child Victim Reconciliation and Compensation Fund that would be run out of the state controller's office.
The idea was ripped by many survivors, legislative Democrats and Gov. Cuomo.
Greenberg said he was hoping a Senate GOP bill would help get all sides to the table to negotiate. But after Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County) did not allow it to come to the floor for a vote, Greenberg said he came to believe the only way the issue will get addressed is with a Democratic-controlled Senate.