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Posted on 01/09/2023 7:52:52 PM PST by lightman
The promise of bipartisan action in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives last week made for nice speeches but when it came time to get work on Monday, it appears to have disappeared.
The first day of the special session that Gov. Tom Wolf ordered to focus on passing a proposed constitutional amendment to give past survivors of child sexual abuse some justice failed to see any action in the House except forming a six-member bipartisan committee to try to break the logjam.
House Speaker Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, issued a statement following a day of inaction by the chamber on opening a two-year window in which victims of childhood sexual abuse could sue their attackers in civil courts acknowledging that they are “too far apart to proceed.”
“This sort of partisan divide is what has plagued Pennsylvanian politics for far too long,” said Rozzi, a child sexual abuse victim. “Party politics must take a back seat to saving the lives of survivors of childhood sexual assault.”
He hopes the workgroup he is forming of “three Republicans and three Democrats of varied interests from across the commonwealth” can figure out a way forward.
“Make no mistake – we must pass Statute of Limitations reform,” Rozzi said. “History will not judge us based on how many Democratic Party wins or Republican Party wins we achieve, but we will be judged based on what we did for the children of this commonwealth.”
House Democrats indicated they are prepared to work with their GOP counterparts on this work group “to bridge our divides to ensure justice for survivors of childhood sexual abuse,” said spokeswoman Nicole Reigelman.
Their Republican counterparts expressed disgust that Rozzi canceled sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“The House Republican Caucus was at the Capitol all day today, ready to work and organize both special session and regular House session. We had rules, we had the votes, and we were ready to proceed with the people’s business,” said GOP leaders.
Earlier in the day, Rozzi’s speakership came under attack by Rep Jim Gregory, R-Blair County – the lawmaker who nominated him for speaker last week and one of the leaders of the efforts to open a two-year window for child sexual abuse survivors – who called for Rozzi to resign from the chamber’s top post.
In a letter to Rozzi, Gregory was critical of Rozzi for wavering on his commitment to change his party affiliation to independent as he had promised Republican leaders he would do in the narrowly divided chamber where Republicans hold 101 seats and Democrats, 99 seats including Rozzi. There are three vacancies.
Attempts to get reaction from Rozzi on Gregory’s resignation request were unsuccessful. House Democrats appeared to be standing with Rozzi.
Gregory added further intrigue to the day’s events by saying he will not be introducing his proposed statute of limitations amendment in the special session. A child sexual abuse survivor himself, Gregory said he is frustrated by other legislators’ insistence on tacking amendments involving other subjects – including election integrity and regulatory reform – into the package of amendments up for consideration this month.
“I want my constitutional amendment on the ballot by itself, period,” Gregory said Monday evening at the Capitol. “What they’re trying to do, in my opinion, is use victims as pawns in a political game, and I’m not going to play that.”
Gregory wasn’t precise about who he was blaming for the linkage, but claimed the other amendments – including one that would require all voters to produce a government-sanctioned identification when voting – ran the risk of jeopardizing what he wants to be clean yes or no vote on the sexual abuse issue.
Victims are owed that much, Gregory said, because of the added wait inflicted on them in 2021 when an earlier, hoped-for expansion of their court rights failed because of clerical errors in the Wolf Administration’s Department of State.
“I want the voters of Pennsylvania to see one question on the ballot for those people who have waited and then got socked in the gut and had to wait two more years,” said Gregory, whose stance is more in line with the Democrats’ view of how these amendments ought to be considered.
Gregory did say, however, that he will still introduce his stand-alone statute of limitations amendment in the General Assembly’s regular session, which has yet to start but can run concurrently with the special session.
It was not immediately clear what impact Gregory’s call for a single amendment would have on the overall process.
Rozzi indicated last week that action on the statute of limitations amendment was the chamber’s priority and he would not consider any other bill until that was through the chamber.
House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County said that decision by Rozzi was inappropriate to hold the entire chamber hostage on any one issue, particularly one that enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
He said his caucus’ priorities were proposed constitutional amendment on the statute of limitations, voter identification, and a measure to reduce the threshold for legislative rejections of a proposed regulations from a two-thirds majority vote to a simple majority.
“That continues to be our goal,” Cutler said, at an evening news conference. “We believe that they are aligned” with Rozzi’s goal as well the governor’s in this special session.
The amendments must pass both chambers of the legislature by Jan. 27 in order to get on the May 16 primary ballot.
House Democrats expressed disappointment in Republicans’ reluctance to consider the statute of limitations amendment on its own. “The General Assembly has a unique opportunity to stand firmly on the side of survivors of child sexual abuse and to start the session off with a genuine show of bipartisanship. The time to act is now,” Reigelman said.
The Senate’s State Government Committee on Monday launched a separate measure containing three other proposed amendments for the consideration on the spring primary ballot: Voter ID; a requirement for routine audits of election results by the state Auditor General’s office; and a measure that reduce the threshold for legislative rejections of a proposed regulations from a two-thirds majority vote to a simple majority.
The latter proposals, which could reach the full Senate as early as Wednesday, are mostly supported by Republicans in the legislature. The Senate took no action on Monday on the statute of limitations amendment, which would start in the Senate Judiciary Committee. That committee did not meet.
Republicans would like to speed up consideration of all the proposed amendments this winter because their majority in the House - temporarily at 101-99 - could disappear as early as next month after the completion of three special elections to fill vacancies in Democratic-leaning seats in Allegheny County.
Those elections are currently scheduled for Feb. 7.
Even in the short term, however, passage of the other measures could be tight in the House if Gregory is determined to make sure that the state of limitations issue is dealt with first.
Meanwhile, the House Republicans and Democrats also were in disagreement over operating rules for the chamber. Among the areas in dispute, the Democrats insist that all bills introduced in the special session would be considered by one committee made up of three members appointed by the speaker while Republicans said that is not representative of the body as a whole and gives too much control to the speaker.
“I don’t think those rules are fair,” Cutler said. “That’s why I don’t believe that they will pass.”
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
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Thank the Pennsylvania Supremes for redrawing these districts to ensure RATS keep filling them.
Believed a rat that he would change his registration after you gave him power? Might as well put a revolver in your mouth and pull the trigger expecting everything to turn out ok
This is what you get when RINOs look the other way at Democrat cheating in order to beat an America First candidate. It started in 2020 against one man and grew in 2022 to include anyone MAGA. Once the legislature is taken over by Dems, the state is lost.
Republican Leadership thought Rozzi would remain a one issue, one trick pony, as Speaker. Rozzi has in the past been obsessed with only one issue, that’s amending the state constitution to give the victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church an extended statute of limitations to sue for personal damages. Turns out they were wrong. Not the first time they have outsmarted themselves. Rozzi appears to be a typical House Democrat who cannot and will not change his stripes. Deals off.
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