Pennsylvania Senate stalls child sexual assault lookback bill

A two-year filing window would cover molestation claims from years ago

Pennsylvania’s Republican-led state Senate did not take up a constitutional amendment that would have opened a two-year window for child sexual assault survivors to file molestation claims from years ago. Under Pennsylvania law, a constitutional amendment must pass two consecutive legislative sessions with identical language to take effect, and this year’s measure was not taken up by the state Senate. The proposal is scheduled to expire at the end of the legislative session on 30 November.

Republican senators attempted to tie the measure to a separate move to expand voter identification requirements, which The Guardian reported was a red line for many chamber Democrats. Democrats accused the Republican Senate majority of playing politics with the bipartisan move to amend the state constitution and open the two-year filing window. Republican leaders in Pennsylvania have attempted to blame Democrats for the measure’s most recent passage failure, claiming victims were being harmed by inaction on the voter identification measure.

The Democrat-controlled state House had already cleared the proposed amendment in June. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has previously criticized Republicans for derailing the measure, noting in a social media post earlier this year that the proposal had passed the state House six times since he took office but had never made it to his desk.

Former Democratic state House Speaker Mark Rozzi said he was disappointed by the inability of Pennsylvania senators to advance the move and also blamed Shapiro for not doing more, according to reporting by the nonprofit investigative outlet Spotlight PA. Rozzi, a survivor of abuse by a Catholic priest, said: “Victims that are hanging on for this law to pass and victims who haven’t come forward yet, they deserve their day in court.”

He continued: “Whether we can go after the perpetrator or we can go after the institutions that aided and abetted these criminals, eventually they are going to be held accountable. Eventually, the hammer is coming down on them.”

Democrats have sought to advance versions of the legislation since at least 2018, after the exposure of a large-scale child sexual abuse scandal in the state’s Catholic church. The Guardian reported that more than 300 “predator priests” were found to have harmed at least 1,000 children.

A 2021 attempt to place such a law before voters in a statewide referendum failed amid what The Guardian described as “internal systemic failures” within the administration of then-Gov. Tom Wolf. The measure’s supporters have been frustrated by the failure of politicians to advance it on several occasions since.

So-called lookback windows allow child victims of sexual assault to sue their alleged attackers, often years after legal options would normally have expired. Similar measures have passed in a number of states in recent years, from New York to Louisiana, and the movement to enact such laws has been influenced by the global #MeToo social justice movement.

The Guardian reported that New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which took effect in 2002, “sparked more than 2,500 lawsuits and brought down several celebrities,” including actor Bill Cosby, music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and film producer Harvey Weinstein.

The Adult Survivors Act came three years after New York’s Child Victims Act extended the statute of limitations for victims. The Adult Survivors Act led to settlements such as $800 million paid to more than 1,300 people who said clergy members and lay leaders of the Catholic archdiocese of New York had sexually abused them.

Democratic state senator Maria Collett said the 3 November midterms give voters the opportunity to get a lookback window law passed if they re-elect Shapiro and grant Democrats control of both state legislative chambers. Collett wrote on Facebook: “Survivors of childhood sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, including in Catholic church cases, have waited years for the legislature to give them a real window to hold their abusers accountable in court.”

She added: “A Democratic trifecta can finally get statute of limitations reform to the governor’s desk.”

Politics PA polling estimated a 65% chance for Democrats to capture the state Senate and a 90% chance to retain control of the House, and rated Shapiro a near-certainty to win reelection. With the Senate not taking up the amendment and the proposal scheduled to expire on 30 November, the measure remained stalled ahead of the election.