Lawmakers push bill to allow lawsuits
Amendment would give victims of child sexual abuse a 2-year window to file
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HARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania lawmakers on Monday launched a rarely used emergency process to amend the state constitution, advancing a proposal that would give victims of child sexual abuse a 2-year window to file otherwise outdated civil lawsuits.
The House Judiciary Committee voted for the amendment, drafted because the Department of State under Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf failed to make the required advertisement of a different version of the amendment that had passed both legislative chambers.
The amendment was sent to the full House for its consideration.
State Rep. Jim Gregory, R-Hollidaysburg, is "pretty confident" in the necessary two-thirds vote in the House, he said.
"It's hard for me to say," about the vote in the full Senate, assuming the Senate Judiciary Committee sends the bill to the Senate floor, perhaps today -- although committee chairs generally don't send bills that are destined to defeat, he said.
Given the governor's commitment to sign the measure if it reaches his desk, it would be hard for the judicial branch to strike it down before the amendment proposal reaches the voters -- although a challenge is possible, Gregory said.
"I just hope that the people behind me are stronger than the people I feel like are in front of me," Gregory said, citing continued lobbying by the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the insurance industry.
"They're fighting this behind the scenes," Gregory said. "They don't want to be seen fighting it in view of the public."
The insurance lobby is arguing that the issue doesn't rise to an "emergency," he said.
The last time a law was passed calling for an emergency amendment to come before the voters was in connection with the Johnstown flood of 1977, Gregory said.
That amendment affected one community, but the effect of this one -- to correct "a human error on purpose" -- is statewide, he said.
The proposed law, introduced by Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, four weeks ago, is "an unprecedented reaction to an unprecedented lack of action" on the part of the Department of State, he said.
The Wolf administration's mishandling of the previous amendment led to the abrupt resignation last month of Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, who has described it as an administrative error.
It irks him that the Inspector General's office hasn't completed its investigation of the cause of the error, Gregory said.
Boockvar "fell on her sword," but "we still don't know today who actually didn't do their job," he said. That person needs to be identified and removed, to keep something similar from happening again, Gregory said.
The bill before the House says failure to advertise the previous amendment frustrates the constitutional process, denies people the ability to express their will by amending the state constitution, and "threatens the very nature" of Pennsylvania's republican form of government.
An emergency amendment must pass by a two-thirds approval vote. Its main sponsor says it requires legislative approval in the coming two weeks if it has any chance to make the May 18 primary ballot as a referendum.
Voters added the emergency amendment process to the state constitution in 1967, and it has been used three times, all involving flooding or storms in the 1970s, according to the Department of State.