Wilson Torpedoes Cassilly Bill on House Floor. Was This Payback?

Following aggressive verbal attacks on one of his bills at a hearing in February, Del. CT Wilson (D-Charles) struck back at Sen. Robert G. Cassilly (R-Harford), re-referring one of Cassilly’s bills back to its House committee on Monday evening, effectively killing it.

SB 610, which would have slowed the mandated phasing-in of accessible beds for disabled individuals in hotels and lodging establishments by one year, was one of just two of Cassilly’s bills to make it out of his home chamber during the 2021 legislative session.

Wilson’s motion to refer the bill back to the House Economic Matters Committee appears to be in retaliation for Cassilly’s harsh rhetoric during a Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing on the Senate version of Wilson’s bill to remove the statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors to pursue civil suits against their abusers...

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/03/29/wilson-torpedoes-cassilly-bill-on-house-floor-was-this-payback/?fbclid=IwAR2wImw4wgk7ce_3maTZzIg0ANQ2q_kPkoGMfkW72kLwXZrepFtbXu02S8U

Zirkin Returns to Old Committee to Testify Against [Delegate CT] Wilson’s Child Sex Abuse Bill #SB134 -“Biggest mistake of my life,” Wilson told Maryland Matters this week, likening the experience to “negotiating with the devil.”

Former Senate Judicial Proceedings chairman Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) returned to his former committee this week to testify against a high-profile bill that’s a follow-up to a measure he once championed.

The woman who replaced Zirkin in the Senate last year, Sen. Shelly L. Hettleman (D-Baltimore County), has joined Del. CT Wilson (D-Charles) in his fight to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors to launch civil suits. The bill was up in the Judicial Proceedings Committee, where Hettleman serves, on Tuesday...

...This legislation is something that Wilson has fought for for years — at times with Zirkin’s help.

In 2017, Wilson successfully sponsored legislation to extend the ability of childhood sexual abuse survivors to pursue civil lawsuits against their offenders from seven years after their 18th birthday to 20 years. 

Additionally, if a perpetrator was convicted in a criminal suit at any time, their victims were allotted a three-year lookback period to sue.

To achieve this, Wilson said that he, former Senate president Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.’s Office and former House Judiciary Committee chair Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince George’s) entered into negotiations with the Catholic church to amend the bill. 

“Biggest mistake of my life,” Wilson told Maryland Matters this week, likening the experience to “negotiating with the devil.”..

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/02/05/zirkin-returns-to-old-committee-to-testify-against-wilsons-child-sex-abuse-bill/?fbclid=IwAR2R66Jm34HptVbvw_Md0HAj_hcy3rt2gmnBQwZM3nUkV0x2sk0CsvX1z-w

Md. Senate panel rejects effort to give childhood sex abuse victims more flexibility to sue

A Senate panel has voted down a bill that would have let childhood sex abuse victims of any age sue institutions that harbored their attackers.

The legislation, proposed amid a global clergy sex abuse scandal, had passed the House of Delegates overwhelmingly last month. But the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee declined to advance it on Wednesday, with one Democrat joining the committee’s four Republicans in voting it down.

The bill had become a heightened source of controversy in Annapolis after its lead sponsor accused the Catholic Church of swindling himinto a deal that may have granted the organization irreversible immunity from sex abuse cases that happened decades ago.

The deal, part of a 2017 law extending the civil statute of limitations, was a key reason cited by a senator who voted against this year’s proposal...

...Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), the bill’s sponsor and himself a victim of childhood sex abuse at the hands of his adoptive father, was shaking in anger after the committee vote. He said the lawmakers who voted down the bill were complicit in helping institutions protect predators...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maryland-panel-votes-down-effort-to-give-more-rights-to-childhood-sex-abuse-victims/2019/04/03/df60045e-565d-11e9-9136-f8e636f1f6df_story.html?utm_term=.747f9d7fde2c

MD Delegates Rejected Delegate Kathleen Dumais' Amendment to Remove Two-Year Window in Bill on Lawsuits over Child Sex Abuse @KathleenDumais1 #MoCoDistrict15 #BethesdaPotomacPoolesvilleGermantown

...Wilson sponsored the 2017 bill that expanded the window to file a lawsuit from age 25 to age 38, and is sponsoring this year’s bill.

“We’ve been protecting institutions for generations and years,” Wilson said, deeming the situation “an emergency” that warrants action from lawmakers.

In an interview, Wilson said that abusers have had “legislative protection.” He noted that some Catholic priests accused of abuse in Pennsylvania relocated to Maryland, as outlined in a lengthy report released last year by Pennsylvania’s attorney general.

“Maryland was a repository for bad actors because we had soft laws,” Wilson said.

The delegates rejected an effort to remove that two-year window. Del. Kathleen Dumais argued that it would open the courts to a flood of lawsuits against schools, churches and even the government from long-ago incidents that would be difficult to defend. Dumais, a Montgomery County Democrat, said it would set the court system “on its head.”..

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-house-abuse-bill-20190316-story.html