toledoblade.com --

COLUMBUS - Two lawsuits claiming several House Republicans illegally plotted behind closed doors were filed yesterday seeking to invalidate a vote that killed a proposal to allow lawsuits in child sexual-abuse cases dating back 35 years.

"Participating in the legislative process has been personally devastating and a rude awakening. We never stood a chance," said Claudia Vercellotti, Toledo coordinator for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Judge John Connor of Franklin County Common Pleas Court, whom House Speaker Jon Husted (R., Kettering) had suggested should resign or be impeached just weeks ago for his lenient sentencing of a sex offender, declined to issue an injunction preventing Gov. Bob Taft from signing the bill. He set a hearing for May 2.

Christy Miller and Dan Frondorf, both of Cincinnati, and Ms. Vercellotti, all of whom claim to have been abused by priests or other representatives of the Catholic Church, contended Mr. Husted met with a majority of House Judiciary Committee members Tuesday in violation of Ohio's open-meetings law.

Soon after, the committee voted along party lines to remove the provision that would have waived the statute of limitations for one year for victims in older cases to file civil suits against their abusers and those who they say covered for them. The House and Senate went on Wednesday to approve the bill without the so-called "look-back" window.

The victims hope the court will not only invalidate the committee vote, but every vote that followed it.

"We think the House really failed to empower victims of sexual abuse, and sadly, by getting their hopes up, they revictimized these people," said Sen. Marc Dann, a suburban Youngstown Democrat running for attorney general who was in Toledo with child sex-abuse victims yesterday.

The suits claim Mr. Husted and Rep. Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati) met with six committee members in a closed room across the hall from the public hearing room. Mr. Seitz is not a committee member but has been an outspoken critic of the retroactive litigation window and an architect of the church-sought civil registry process that the House substituted for it.

"It is my understanding that there was never a majority of members present," said House GOP spokesman Karen Tabor. "Republicans did not ask for a caucus. Democrats asked for a caucus, and the chairman granted that request. While waiting for Democrats to return from their caucus, some members may have congregated in a room to take a break. But there was not a majority of the members present."

She said the speaker came over to check on the committee's process, but the bill's merits were never discussed in detail. At one point, Mr. Husted was jeered by victims as he exited the meeting room.

State law offers wide latitude for the entire Republican or Democratic caucus of either the House or Senate to meet privately behind closed doors. But there is no similar exemption for a committee majority.

Instead of the litigation window, the sexual abuse bill contains a civil registry, an alternative offered by the Catholic Conference of Ohio. It would allow victims in cases where the statute of limitations has expired to ask a judge to place their abusers' names on a public list, regardless of whether the accused was ever convicted or charged with a crime.

It extends the statute of limitations in future cases from two years beyond a victim's 18th birthday to 12 years, and it would stop the time limit clock when a potential defendant engages in fraud to hide crucial information

"We passed a tough sexual predator law that will protect children across the state of Ohio, and we're going to fight on behalf of those children to make sure it's enacted," said Mr. Husted in a prepared statement.

The Ohio Newspaper Association said it might welcome a court ruling clarifying the increasingly murky question of what constitutes a caucus, and might weigh into the case at some point.

"Legislative attorneys have recently started fretting openly about how to interpret the word 'caucus,'●" said Executive Director Frank Deaner. "Republicans have the majority on all of these committees, and there's a general feeling that the word 'caucus' refers to any time you want to go off and talk as a political party. But I'm hearing that in-house attorneys are advising their committees not to caucus as a committee because they're afraid it might violate the open-meetings law."

Rep. Peter Ujvagi (D., Toledo) said the congregation of the speaker and some committee members just before the vote should be subjected to the "duck test."

"If it looks like a caucus and sounds like a caucus, it must be a caucus," he said.

Staff writer Steve Eder contributed to this story.

Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.

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