Pa. Senate approves move to amend constitution for window on child sex abuse lawsuits

attention and led to similar grand jury investigations in other states.

The vote to approve the start of the constitutional amendment process was 42-6. The rest of that process includes a repeat passage of the bill by both the House and Senate in the next legislative session, followed by voter approval in a referendum.

Among the victims who watched the proceedings from home was Shaun Dougherty.

The 49-year-old survivor of child sexual abuse by a priest was able to laugh Wednesday evening before the vote, about the fact that the Senate did not start its debate on the issue until the end of its work schedule.

“We’re always last,” said Dougherty, who lives in Johnstown. “I’m used to it.”

Another victim, Michael McDonnell, 51, watched the proceedings in his home in Bristol, Bucks County. McDonnell said that when he was 12 years old, he was sexually assaulted by two different priests in two different places.

Before the vote Wednesday night, he said he had mixed feelings about the prospect of a constitutional amendment.

The length of the process would give powerful institutions like the Catholic Church time to somehow affect the process, he said.

Senators voted down several proposed amendments to another bill — sponsored by abuse survivor Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat — that would remove the statute of limitations for criminal charges against a child sex abuser and boost the age for victims to file civil lawsuits.

Rozzi and the sponsor of the constitutional amendment bill — Republican Rep. Jim Gregory of Blair County, who also suffered abuse as a child — were in the chamber and were given a round of applause, led by Republican Majority Leader Jake Corman.

Rozzi suffered abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest in 1984 and has pushed for action to help victims since he arrived in the Legislature in 2013.

“It’s been exhausting,” Rozzi said in an interview Tuesday, in anticipation of the votes. “This was my number one issue. Getting to the Legislature and doing everything I could to support and protect the victims of child sex abuse, past, present and future.”

The package of bills that came to the Senate on Wednesday was the result of a bipartisan compromise.

In it, Rozzi agreed that instead of seeking a change in state law to carry out arguably the most central component — the opening of the two-year window for civil lawsuits by victims regardless of when they were abused — proponents would seek a change in the state constitution.

Morning Call reporter Ford Turner can be reached at 717-783-7305 or fturner@mcall.com