State Senate Republicans Kill the Child Victims Act Again As Majority Leader Says Bill Won't Get a Vote This Year

By Glenn Blain, Kenneth Lovett
New York Daily News
June 20, 2017

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/state-senate-republicans-kill-child-victims-act-article-1.3263522

Child sex abuse lobbyists and supporters are angered and hurt after Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, R-Smithtown, decided to kill the Child Victims Act for the year. (MIKE GROLL/AP)

State Senate Republicans once again turned their backs on child sex abuse victims.

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan responded “yes” when asked Tuesday afternoon if the Child Victims Act is done for the year.

“It's under discussion, but the Senate is not going to be taking that bill up,” Flanagan told reporters.

Flanagan killed the bill’s chances a day after the hopes of survivors for a vote before the legislative session’s scheduled end on Wednesday were raised by Sen. James Tedisco, of Schenectady, who became the first Senate Republican to come out in favor of the Child Victims Act.

Survivors of abuse, who hoped after more than a decade of fighting that this was the year, were left hurt and angry at Flanagan.

“He can go F himself because we have the votes to pass it,” said upstate investor and abuse survivor Gary Greenberg. “You can print that. He’s protecting the Church, he’s protecting the predators, and he’s not protecting the kids of New York.”

Greenberg urged the eight breakaway Democrats who are aligned in leadership coalition with the Republicans to go “back with the Dems...and throw Flanagan out as majority leader” “Stand with victims, not evil,” he said.

Kathryn Robb, abused by her eldest brother at age 9, in the N.Y. State Assembly chamber as she joins survivors of childhood sexual abuse in Albany. (JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Michael Polenberg, of Safe Horizon, who works with victims, called the decision to kill the bill “a perversion of justice to shackle thousands of children with a 5-year statute of limitations in exchange for a lifetime of protection from prosecution for their abusers.”

Another survivor, Kathryn Robb, who had worked closely this year on the issue with the Cuomo administration, called the Senate decision “profoundly disappointing.”

“I really hoped the senators could do the right thing and trust their internal gut about what’s the right and just and fair thing to do,” Robb said.

Andrew Willis, a survivor and founder of the Stop Abuse Campaign, called it “unbelievable the Republican Senate would stand in the way of protecting 43,000 New York children a year.”

The Assembly had, for the first time since 2008, passed a version of the Child Victims Act.

Gov. Cuomo introduced his own bill that was identical to the Assembly legislation that passed with overwhelming support, including among Republicans.

Upstate investor Gary Greenberg, a survivor of sexual abuse, dissed Flanagan after he decided to kill the bill and said, “He can go F himself because we have the votes to pass it." (JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

The bills would allow survivors to bring civil cases up until their 50th birthdays and felony criminal cases until their 28th birthdays. Currently, they have until their 23rd birthdays to bring such cases.

The bills also include a one-year window to revive old cases and treats public and private institutions the same. Currently, those abused in a public setting like a school have just 90 days from the incident occurring to formally file an intent to sue.

But in the end, opposition to creating the one-year window to revive old cases provided impossible to overcome.

The New York State Catholic Conference, the Boy Scouts of America and other groups opposed the measure.

A Catholic Conference spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment.

Senate bill sponsor Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) called it “a crushing disappointment on the heels of such progress made this year.”

He added that “37 Republicans in the Assembly supported it — that’s more than there are Republican state senators.”

Assembly bill sponsor Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) called Flanagan’s decision to kill the bill “pretty despicable.”

“The Senate is taking a position that they would rather protect predators,” Rosenthal said.

Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said she hopes the Senate leaders have a change of heart before the legislative session ends.

“Once again justice has been denied to so many victims of such heinous crimes,” Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said. “The failure to act on the Child Victims Act for the 11th straight year is a failure that stains the entire legislative session.”

Advocates vowed they are not giving up.

“This is not the end of this issue,” said lawyer and advocate Marci Hamilton.

“We’ll be back next January.”