Colorado Senate again rejects effort to ask voters to let past victims of child sex abuse sue their abusers

For a second year in a row, the Colorado Senate on Thursday rejected a resolution that would have placed a measure on the ballot asking voters to let victims of childhood sexual abuse in decades past to sue their alleged abusers and the organizations that let the abuse happen.

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Democrats revive effort to ask Colorado voters to let past victims of child sex abuse sue their abusers

Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 would ask voters to amend the Colorado Constitution to let victims for whom the statute of limitations has expired file lawsuits Read more

Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 failed by a vote of 23-12. It needed a supermajority of support, or 24 votes, in the chamber to advance. 

A supermajority of support in each the Senate and House is the bar a resolution has to clear for the legislature to place a measure that would amend the constitution on the ballot.

Every Republican in the Senate voted against the measure while every Democrat voted in favor of it. 

The same resolution was brought by Democrats and failed in the Senate last year also along party lines.

The ballot-measure effort is a response to a Colorado Supreme Court decision in 2023 striking down a provision in a bipartisan 2021 law that gave victims of child sex assault dating back to the 1960s a three-year window to sue their abusers and the institutions that allowed their abuse, even though the statute of limitations had run out. 

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The court ruled the law, Senate Bill 88, violated a provision in the constitution prohibiting the General Assembly from reviving a claim for which the statute of limitations has run out. 

The statute of limitations used to give child sex abuse survivors in Colorado six years after they turned 18 to file legal action. Most child sex abuse survivors wait decades before revealing their abuse.

The Colorado Sun in 2020 profiled a man who waited until he was 45 to reveal his allegation he had been abused as a child by a priest who was a constant figure in his family’s life. “When I look back, the reason I didn’t say anything is because I didn’t want to hurt my family,” the man, Neil Elms, said.

The six-year limitation was repealed in 2021 through the passage of Senate Bill 73, a second measure, but the change only applied to acts that occurred after the law went into effect or for which the statute of limitations had not run out.

The Democrats who supported Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 said the ballot measure would give victims a chance at justice. 

“This is about personal responsibility and organizational responsibility,” said Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat. 

But Republicans argued, as they did last year, while letting victims sue their abusers makes sense, opening up institutions to legal liability could have crippling effects.

“The acts subject to this resolution are vile. Inexscubale. Evil. And represent the very worst of humanity,” said Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, R-Monument. “Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 does not tie perpetrators to their crimes. It upends numerous constitutional and legally settled rights.”

Even if Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 had passed the legislature, it faced a steep hill at the ballot box. Ballot measures changing the state constitution require the support of 55% of voters to pass.