Pa. House returns to pass sexual abuse survivors' bills; GOP objects to special session rules
Seven weeks after adjourning in a deadlock over its operating rules, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives returned to a special session on Tuesday and advanced legislation to give adult victims of childhood sexual abuse a chance to hold their attackers accountable.
Lawmakers voted to move a bill out of committee with bipartisan support to amend the state Constitution and create a two-year exception to the civil statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits.
Democrats advanced a second bill to make a law giving survivors two years to sue their attackers and the institutions that enabled them. But the two Republican members of the five-member House Committee to Provide Justice to Otherwise Barred Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse voted against the measure.
Republicans, in the minority for the first time in more than a decade, stridently objected to rules adopted for the special session that require a two-thirds majority to amend a bill.
Democratic leaders called the complaints a delay tactic, noting that the rules are for a special session with the singular purpose of passing the statute of limitations reform that survivors of abuse by clergy and other institutional figures have sought for nearly two decades.
https://www.penncapital-star.com/government-politics/pa-house-returns-to-pass-sexual-abuse-survivors-bills-gop-objects-to-special-session-rules/
