After Senator Jim Beall announced that he, along with several of his legislative counterparts in California, had sponsored a new bill to extend both criminal and civil statutes of limitations in that state for victims of childhood sexual abuse, USA Swimming says that they will not oppose the new bill.
A very succinct statement from USA Swimming, received Wednesday afternoon, read that “USA Swimming’s Board of Directors is currently not considering opposing Sen. Jim Beall’s new bills.”
Here’s more information about Beall’s new bills.
Beall has introduced new legislation, after SB 131 was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown, that closes at least two major complaints that USA Swimming had with the legislation: that it did not hold abusers accountable, and that it did not hold governmental groups accountable in a civil courtroom in the same way it held private groups accountable.
Now, two bills are in the works: one that greatly extends statutes of limitations for victims to bring civil cases in instances of childhood sexual abuse, and one that extends statutes of limitations for victims to bring criminal charges in instances of sexual childhood abuse.
USA Swimming hired lobbying firm Nielsen Merksamer to oppose the passage of bill SB 131, which eventually made its way through both houses of California’s legislature before being vetoed by the governor.
Braden. The Board had its January meeting last Saturday. I do not recall this being discussed at all. We were only informed about the bill after the meeting.
Dave
David – the USA Swimming spokesperson who we talked to gave us that statement, so you’d have to discuss that with her.