{"id":314565,"date":"2026-10-26T14:30:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T14:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/314565\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T14:30:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T14:30:06","slug":"pennsylvania-lookback-bill-for-child-sexual-assault-survivors-again-stalled-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/314565\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania \u2018lookback\u2019 bill for child sexual assault survivors again stalled | Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Child sexual assault survivors in Pennsylvania<\/a> are on the verge of being denied the opportunity to sue their attackers after a bill to temporarily waive filing deadlines stalled again in the state\u2019s legislature.<\/p>\n

Democrats have accused the Republican senate majority of playing politics with the bipartisan move to amend the state constitution and open a two-year window for victims to file molestation claims from years ago.<\/p>\n

Similar measures have passed in a number of other states in recent years, from New York to Louisiana.<\/p>\n

The proposed amendment cleared the Democrat-controlled state house in June. But the bill is set to expire at the end of the legislative session on 30 November after Republican senators attempted to tie it to a separate move to expand voter identification requirements, a red line for many chamber Democrats.<\/p>\n

Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic governor, has previously criticized Republicans for derailing the measure, noting in a social media post<\/a> earlier this year that it passed the state house six times since he took office \u2013 but never made it to his desk.<\/p>\n

Democrats have been trying to push through versions of the law since at least 2018<\/a> after the exposure of a large-scale child sexual abuse scandal in the state\u2019s Catholic church in which more than 300 \u201cpredator priests\u201d<\/a> were found to have harmed at least 1,000 children.<\/p>\n

In 2021, \u201cinternal systemic failures<\/a>\u201d by the administration of then governor Tom Wolf denied Pennsylvania voters from being able to crystalize such a law in a statewide referendum. And the measure\u2019s supporters have been frustrated by the failure of politicians to advance it on several occasions since.<\/p>\n

Under Pennsylvania<\/a> law, for an amendment to the constitution to take effect, it must pass two consecutive legislative sessions with identical language. This year\u2019s measure was not taken up by the state senate.<\/p>\n

Mark Rozzi, the former Democratic state house speaker, said he was disappointed by the inability of Pennsylvania senators to advance the move \u2013 and also blamed Shapiro for not doing more, as reported by the non-profit investigative news outlet Spotlight PA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictims that are hanging on for this law to pass and victims who haven\u2019t come forward yet, they deserve their day in court,\u201d said Rozzi, a survivor of abuse by a Catholic priest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

So-called \u201clookback windows\u201d allow child victims of sexual assault to later sue their alleged attackers, often years after legal options would normally have expired. Several states have passed similar measures in recent years, influenced by the global #MeToo social justice movement.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s groundbreaking Adult Survivors Act, which took effect in 2002, sparked more than 2,500 lawsuits<\/a> and brought down several celebrities, including actor Bill Cosby, music mogul Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs and film producer Harvey Weinstein.<\/p>\n

It came three years after the state\u2019s Child Victims Act extended the statute of limitations for victims and led to settlements such as $800m<\/a> paid to more than 1,300 people who said they were sexually abused by clergy members and lay leaders of the Catholic archdiocese of New York.<\/p>\n

Republican leaders in Pennsylvania have attempted to blame Democrats for that measure\u2019s most recent passage failure, claiming victims were being harmed by inaction on the voter ID measure.<\/p>\n

Democratic state senator Maria Collett said the 3 November midterms give voters the opportunity to finally get a lookback window law passed if voters re-elect Shapiro and grant the Democrats control of both state legislative chambers.<\/p>\n

Polling by Politics PA suggests Democrats have a 65% chance<\/a> to capture the state senate and a 90% chance to retain control of the house. Shapiro is a near-certainty to win re-election.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvivors 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,\u201d Collett wrote on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Democratic trifecta can finally get statute of limitations reform to the governor\u2019s desk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Child sexual assault survivors in Pennsylvania are on the verge of being denied the opportunity to sue their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-314565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}