CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register
Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 5, 2013
From today’s Orange County Register
SCOTT M. REID / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A little-known group calling itself the California Council of Non-Profit Organizations has been working behind the scenes in recent months to defeat a state Senate bill which would extend the time limits in which victims of sexual abuse can file civil lawsuits.
The CCONO spent $75,195 during the first three months of 2013 lobbying against SB131, according to documents filed with the secretary of state. The organization has hired five firms since Jan. 1 to lobby against SB131, which passed out of the Senate last week on a 21-10 vote and now moves to the Assembly Judiciary Committee.
Charmaine Carnes and two other former gymnasts testified before a state Senate committee in May in support of SB 131, describing childhood sexual abuse by former coaches that has haunted them, altering the course of their lives.
BOB PENNELL, FOR THE REGISTER
Introduced by Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, SB131 calls for a one-year window for victims that were previously time-barred by statute to file a civil suit against their actual abuser or the employer of the abuser. This window would be open from 2014-2015. The bill follows a 2011 Orange County Register investigation in which more than dozen female former gymnasts said they were sexually and physically abused by their coaches in the 1970s and 80s.
Beall and SB 131 supporters argue that the accounts of child sexual abuse victims like the former gymnasts demonstrate the necessity of extending the statute of limitations. Nearly half of all victims of child sexual abuse do not tell anyone of the abuse for at least five years, according to multiple studies. In the cases of many victims the memory of the abuse is suppressed for years, even decades.
The California Council of Non-Profit Organizations is not to be confused with the California Association of Non-Profits, a group which counts 1,400 non-profits among its members. The CCONO is not a member of the CANP. The CCONO is also not listed on the Attorney General office’s registry of Charitable Trusts. The CCONO is also not listed on the Internal Revenue Services’ list of tax-exempt organizations that can receive tax-deductible contributions.
The CCONO has no website and it is unclear how many groups actually belong to it. The CCONO was incorporated on August 13, 2012, according to records filed with the Secretary of State’s office.
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