HARRISBURG (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [Pittsburgh PA]
May 13, 2024
By Ford Turner
The therapist waved a stick-like object back and forth before state Rep. Mark Rozzi’s eyes, making him look left and right, as the therapist got his patient to recite painful memories of sexual abuse that happened 40 years earlier.
The therapy Mr. Rozzi has undergone recently, he said, has let him mentally grasp horrible recollections from his youth and “file them away like any other childhood memory.” It is called EMDR — for “eye movement densensitization and reprocessing therapy” — and it has been a milestone in his handling of memories of being raped by a Catholic priest.
“It’s been a godsend,” he said of its effect on his personal life.
Squaring away things in his public life is another matter.
Mr. Rozzi, 53, for years has championed in Harrisburg the need to allow child sex abuse survivors a two-year window in which to file otherwise outdated lawsuits. A Democrat, he is in his 12th year in office and is not seeking re-election, so his time as a lawmaker will end this year.
So far, no lawsuit window has been put in place.
The May-June stretch in the Capitol — when lawmakers and the administration wheel and deal in budget discussions — may offer a glimmer of hope for him.
Gov. Josh Shapiro was state attorney general in 2018 when that office produced the landmark investigative grand jury report that exposed widespread sex abuse and child rape by Catholic priests. That report recommended opening the lawsuit window.
Mr. Shapiro still wants it to happen. But bills that would bring it about have long been stalled in Harrisburg.
Mr. Rozzi, a Berks County resident, started filing bills to help victims soon after he took office in 2013 and testified before the grand jury. He went to Rome in February 2019, during the Vatican’s summit on the massive sex abuse scandal. The following year, he began working with Republican Sen. Joe Scarnati to try and get past partisan roadblocks to helping victims.
Since then, one dramatic political moment has followed another but the issue has not been resolved.
“Some victims have killed themselves. Some have overdosed. Families have been devastated by this,” he said.
No progress in Harrisburg
The question of whether to implement the lawsuit window touches a nerve for many lawmakers.
“There is nothing that disgusts me more than the exploitation of children,” said state Rep. Marla Brown, R-Lawrence and a Catholic. Nonetheless, she said she believes Mr. Shapiro as attorney general had “a vendetta against the Catholic Church” and she would vote ‘no’ on opening a window.
“The church had issues and they have dealt with them,” she said. “Now anybody that even deals with anything in the church has to go through training and get background checks.”
Beyond that, Ms. Brown said, opening the lawsuit window has the potential to bankrupt nonprofits. While her heart goes out to Mr. Rozzi and other victims, she said that “to open this window, I don’t see how this benefits the situation.”
Like Mr. Rozzi, state Sen. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery, believes people have “perished fighting this trauma.” She said she supports allowing a window for the lawsuits, but “it doesn’t seem to be a priority for those who are empowered.”
Sen. Jim Brewster, D-McKeesport, also said he supported Mr. Rozzi’s position. “A victim is a victim,” Mr. Brewster said. “It’s that simple.”
Two legislative paths are available. One is changing state statute — in other words, writing a new law — to give victims of long-ago abuse the ability to file lawsuits. The other is changing the state constitution.
The first path is less time-consuming than the second, but doesn’t carry the same legal authority. Bills that would accomplish both ways are awaiting action.
The General Assembly is uniquely divided, with Republicans in control of the Senate and Democrats the House. And, positions may have hardened after years of high-profile — and heartbreaking — drama.
In 2021, a government mistake blew up a bipartisan effort to have the constitution amended. That arduous process requires new wording to be approved by the General Assembly in two consecutive, two-year sessions — approvals that must be followed by advertising by the Secretary of State’s office — and then be placed on the ballot for approval by voters.
It was discovered in early 2021 that then-Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar’s office had failed to advertise after lawmakers’ first approval of proposed new wording for the constitution. Ms. Boockvar resigned, but the entire multi-year process had to start over.
Last year, Mr. Rozzi was catapulted to the highest office in the chamber via a unique political agreement made when long-term power in the chamber was up in the air. Sixteen Republicans voted in favor of making the Democrat, Mr. Rozzi, speaker of the House.
They included Rep. Jim Gregory, R-Blair, a fellow survivor of abuse who nominated Mr. Rozzi for the job. Days later, Mr. Gregory called for Mr. Rozzi’s resignation, claiming he had gone back on an agreement to change his political affiliation from Democrat to independent.
Repeated attempts to obtain comment from Mr. Gregory — recently defeated in the April primary election — were not successful.
Mr. Rozzi’s run as speaker lasted 56 days.
“Everything I did to become speaker of the House was to give victims more opportunities to get this bill passed,” Mr. Rozzi said. “My plan was, I was going to run every single, possible bill to the Senate.”
The history of legislators’ disgust with cover-ups of sexual abuse goes back to at least 2005, when a county grand jury produced a report on abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Then-state Rep. Mike McGeehan, a Democrat and a Catholic, filed a bill calling for a two-year window for lawsuits.
Former Democratic Sen. Andrew Dinniman of Chester County, who retired in 2020 after more than 14 years in Senate, said a golden opportunity was missed when Mr. Rozzi and Mr. Gregory made a deal, and Mr. Rozzi did not switch to independent.
“I think it is disgraceful, after the reports and what occurred, that the Legislature can’t get its act together,” Mr. Dinniman said.
Former Republican Rep. Stan Saylor of York County, a 30-year lawmaker, said he favored the concept. “The people who have suffered deserve a day at trial,” he said.
At the same time, Mr. Saylor said that generally speaking, too many frivolous lawsuits are filed. And, he said, creating a lawsuit window could trigger pressure for opening windows for other types of “otherwise outdated” lawsuits.
‘This is bad government’
Among the stalled-out bills this session, one that creates the window via a change in law passed the Democrat-controlled House but hit a wall in the Republican-controlled Senate. That chamber, meanwhile, approved a three-constitutional amendment package, but the House stripped out two of them — including one on voter ID — and sent the bill back to the Senate, where it sits.
A spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, deferred comment to the office of Senate majority leader, who generally manages the flow of legislation in the chamber.
Ms. Ward held the majority leader post during the 2021-22 session. In a February interview that aired on Harrisburg television station WHTM-27, Ms. Ward said implementing the lawsuit window could produce big costs for public schools. “There is a lot more abuse that has happened in the schools these past 50 or 60 years than there is happening in any other particular entity,” Ms. Ward said.
She defended the use of a bill that tied together the lawsuit window and voter ID requirements. “I don’t consider voter ID a political issue. It is simply saying, ‘Here’s my ID which I need to use for everything, and I am permitted to vote.’” Ms. Ward said in the interview. “It is an important part of our election integrity in Pennsylvania.”
Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, noted the three-amendment bill was the first to pass the Senate this session. “We remain open to conversations which will facilitate placing amendments on the ballot to address critical issues,” Mr. Pittman said.
For his part, Mr. Shapiro is all in. Exhorting lawmakers and gesturing with his fist during his Feb. 6 budget address, Mr. Shapiro said, “Come on, gang. You’ve passed this before.”
Mr. Rozzi said the saga of the proposed lawsuit window shows how ineffective state government is.
He said, “This is bad government.”
Ford Turner: fturner@post-gazette.com