Editorial: Local senators block help for child victims

Times Record-Herald
April 17, 2018

http://www.recordonline.com/opinion/20180417/editorial-local-senators-block-help-for-child-victims

So what will it be, Sens. John Bonacic and Bill Larkin?

Protect the victims of abuse or instead protect the insurance companies and the institutions, most notably the Catholic Church, that are more worried about what they might have to pay?

That’s what it comes down to in these final weeks of the legislative session as a series of bills long held hostage in the state Senate awaits yet another chance for passage.

The legislation is known as the Child Victims Act and it would have become law years ago had it not been for the opposition of the Senate Republican majority which has refused to even bring it up for a vote.

The facts have not changed. As yet another report said yet again last week, New York has some of the worst laws in the nation when it comes to the rights of victims of child molestation. Other states used to have similar laws. In fact, 39 have changed them since the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church received national publicity from the 2002 investigation by the Boston Globe, a story made even more prominent by the movie “Spotlight.”

Still, New York Republican senators resist.

They often dwell on what sounds like a reasonable objection, the potential difficulty should the state allow one provision in the legislative package — a one-year period with no statute of limitations to allow victims to bring up accusations from the past.

Bonacic, a lawyer and experienced legislator, routinely echoes the church and insurance company talking point that such a provision would amount to an “evidentiary nightmare” because after many years memories can be suspect and it is hard to find witnesses.

But New York already has an open approach to some serious crimes. Even some court actions to enforce collection of a debt allow the person coming to court to go back 20 years, much longer than most abuse victims have.

As a University of Pennsylvania professor found in a recent analysis of such laws, New York “continues to have one of the shortest statutes of limitations for civil molestation suits in the country even though it has eliminated the criminal statute of limitations for some felony molestation crimes.”

Besides, that’s what courts are there for — to decide which evidence is valid and which recollections are not. The Assembly, which has a lot of lawyers as members, understands that and already has passed the package of laws. Democrats in the Senate agree. Only the Senate Republicans stand in the way.

In the past, our two local senators have been confident in their chances for re-election facing mostly token opposition. So far there is no announced Democratic opponent for Larkin, but Bonacic faces two and both have been outspoken in their support of the Child Victim Law.

As Rosendale Councilwoman Jen Metzger, one of those trying to unseat Bonacic, said last month, he “has consistently opposed the Child Victims Act. He apparently believes abused children must remain silent their entire lives.”

They should not. Voters should not. And our senators need to recognize that they have the chance to help genuine victims now and in the future.