No window ‘fast track’ for child sex abuse suit
HARRISBURG » Majority Republicans in the state Senate said Monday they will not employ a rarely used emergency process to amend the Pennsylvania Constitution to give victims of child sexual abuse a two-year window in which to file civil lawsuits, possibly delaying a final vote on the window until 2023.
The collapse of the emergency amendment process followed years of battles in the Legislature, prompted by investigations into child sexual abuse allegations inside Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic diocese.
Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward said that a “great majority” of Republicans believe that the situation does not meet the criteria for an emergency amendment and would be bogged down by legal challenges that further delay victims from successfully suing for damages.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s Department of State failed to make the required public advertisements last year of a conventional constitutional amendment, leaving lawmakers a choice between starting the process over or using the emergency amendment process.
Ward said lawmakers will start over.
“The dereliction of duty by the Wolf administration has forced the Pennsylvania Senate to reset the clock on the constitutional amendment,” said Ward, R-Westmoreland, said in a statement. “The Pennsylvania Senate will act in the same manner as it has previously and in accordance with the Commonwealth’s constitution and will seek to pass another constitutional amendment.”
The emergency amendment proposal became an option after Wolf’s administration revealed six weeks ago it had committed a massive mistake and failed to arrange the mandatory advertisement.
That mistake scuttled plans to approve a proposed state constitutional amendment allowing lawsuits over decades-old claims to appear on the May 18 primary ballot for voters to consider.
Ward’s statement emerged in the days after backers acknowledged that support might be lacking for an emergency amendment. House Democratic leaders accused Republicans of being “disrespectful to survivors of childhood sexual abuse” and deciding “to do nothing but point fingers in the name of political games.”
Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, who has championed the two-year lawsuit window, said he was working on a plan to provide it through regular legislation, while the slower conventional constitutional amendment process continues.
“It’s disappointing for the victims, for sure,” said Rozzi, who has spoken publicly about his own abuse at the hands of a parish priest.
The double track approach of a normal bill and an amendment could start quickly, he said.
“I think it’s a very viable option,” Rozzi said, “at least to get something out of the House that way.”
The proposed constitutional amendment would give now-adult victims of childhood sexual abuse a two-year reprieve — a socalled window — from time limits in state law that otherwise bar them from suing perpetrators or institutions that may have covered it up.
Many lost the right to sue when they turned 18 or were young adults, depending on state law at the time. Under the proposed amendment, they would have two years to sue over their alleged abuse, no matter how long ago it occurred.