Gregory Advocates for Victims in Meeting with Acting Secretary of Commonwealth
HARRISBURG – Rep. Jim Gregory (R-Blair) met Thursday with Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid to express his continued frustration with the department’s failures that put a constitutional amendment on hold.
If approved by the voters, that constitutional amendment would have given victims of childhood sexual abuse recourse in civil court.
The department failed to meet the legal requirement of advertising the proposed amendment, potentially delaying the matter by two years.
"If I can be the face for victims of this historic – in fact, epic – Department of State failure, I will be, or I will at least make sure this mistake has a solution and never happens again. I'm fighting where the governor and attorney general are not,” Gregory said. “I want to know who has lost their jobs so far and what is being done to make sure it never happens again. These people in this department need to see my face as a survivor and see who they have impacted.”
Degraffenreid apologized, whereas former Secretary Kathy Boockvar did not, according to Gregory.
“Secretary Degraffenreid offered an apology to me for the error. I thanked her for the acknowledgement of the pain this has caused,” Gregory said.
Gregory sponsored two bills to amend Section 11 of Article 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution (known as the Remedies Clause) to create a two-year window for civil claims. Doing so would allow victims to file lawsuits if the statute of limitations has already expired for that victim.
The legislation was designed to put a referendum question to voters in the May 18 primary election.
Representative Jim Gregory
80th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Jennifer Fitch
717.260.6335
jfitch@pahousegop.com
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