Wolf recalls Pa. General Assembly to pass sexual abuse constitutional amendment

Whether they like it or not, Pennsylvania’s General Assembly will return to Harrisburg on Monday with one job: consider a long-promised constitutional amendment to reopen the window for childhood sexual abuse survivors to file civil suits.

Gov. Tom Wolf made the stunning move Friday to call the House and Senate into a special session to vote on the amendment so it can appear before voters on the May ballot. His decision comes less than two weeks before he leaves office.

Lawmakers have until Jan. 27 to pass a joint resolution to get the sexual abuse measure before voters, Wolf said in his proclamation.

A special session requires the legislature to only consider the legislation before it. Special sessions are rare, and Wolf has mainly threatened to use that executive power in recent years if lawmakers didn’t complete legislation prior to recessing. It’s even more unusual to call a special session at the start of a new legislative session. For example, House members have yet to vote on the rules governing the chamber or receive committee assignments.

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Voters were supposed to decide on the constitutional amendment, which would temporarily suspend the state’s statute of limitations for two years to allow abuse victims of decades-old sexual abuse a new chance to sue, in 2021. But the Department of State failed to properly advertise the constitutional amendment, and the process was forced to start over. A constitutional amendment must pass both chambers in two consecutive sessions; it was passed in the 2021-22 legislative session. This special session would allow for it to be passed a second time and appear on the May primary ballot.

“For far too many Pennsylvanians, justice and healing for the pain they’ve experienced is out of reach,” Wolf said in a statement. “This special session is a critical step to allow the General Assembly to focus their work on this important, and potentially life-saving, task. No survivor should be denied the chance to hold their abuser accountable, regardless of how much time has passed.”

Wolf’s proclamation closed out an already eventful week in Harrisburg: First, the House GOP nominated a Democrat as House speaker; then the new speaker, Rep. Mark Rozzi of Berks County, announced he would be the state’s first “independent” speaker.

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The amendment was born out of a 2018 grand jury report that documented decades of abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania churches. Rozzi, himself a childhood sexual abuse survivor, has been the top advocate for the measure.

“For the last 10 years I have fought this battle as a rank-and-file member. Promises have been made. Hope has been raised. But time after time, at the end of the day, for whatever reason, justice has been denied,” Rozzi said in a statement. “My friends, it is now 2023. We’ve talked the talk – now it’s time to walk the walk, together, one last time, for the victims of childhood sexual abuse.”

What’s more, the House would not consider any other legislation until this amendment is passed, Rozzi said.

The special session will likely block Republicans from using the next few weeks — while they still have a majority — to pass their policy priorities. Republicans are expected to have the majority until Feb. 7, when special elections will take place for three vacancies.

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GOP leaders in recent days said they had interest in passing the sexual abuse amendment, in addition to other amendments like voter ID requirements or regulatory reform. Now their hopes for passing anything other than the sexual abuse amendment are off the table until the closure of the special session.

“It is not in the best interest of the Commonwealth to do this work in special session, where we are required to only work on a single issue,” said House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler. “Passing this constitutional amendment was something we have done easily in the past and have already committed to running this session. We can do this work in regular session, while also addressing other urgent needs the people of Pennsylvania expect us to address in a timely manner.”

The sexual abuse amendment has not been a partisan issue. House Republicans and Democrats and Senate Democrats have supported the measure; Senate Republican leaders previously said they believed certain legislation to be unconstitutional, though they reached a deal on the issue last year.