Colorado legislators are moving to amend the state Constitution after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled a law giving child sex abuse victims a temporary window to file lawsuits over decades-old cases was unconstitutional. If passed, the amendment will appear on the November ballot.

In a Wednesday morning news conference, state Sen. Jessie Danielson, state Sen. Rhonda Fields, House Majority Leader Monica Duran, survivors of childhood sexual abuse and advocates announced the Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Amendment had been filed.

“Last year the Colorado Supreme Court struck down the Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, so we’re coming back this year to fix that,” said Brie Franklin, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “The way to do that is to change the Constitution, which requires a vote by the people.”

What seems like a huge change is actually just a few sentences being added to one specific section of the Colorado Constitution.

Article 2, Section 11 of the state Constitution bars the Colorado Legislature from passing retrospective laws, like the look-back window of the accountability act.

“This amendment would add a short paragraph to the end of that section that says the General Assembly may pass laws that are retrospective, but only as to child sexual abuse claims,” said Kathryn Robb, executive director of CHILD USAdvocacy.

And for Robb, this is personal.

“I’m a survivor myself and I didn’t speak publicly about my abuse until I was in my mid- to late-40s,” Robb said. “I know firsthand how the shame, the embarrassment, the fear and the power and weight of that stamps out the voices of survivors.”

On average, about half of child sex abuse victims come forward between ages 50 and 70, Franklin said. One third of survivors never come forward at all.

“At that point, with the statute of limitations, they’ve passed the opportunity to be able to have any kind of recourse for what’s happened to them,” Franklin said. “We need survivors to come forward when they’re ready to do so and not force them into an arbitrary timeline. This was wrong at the time it occurred, and we should still be able to hold these people accountable.”

Another bill sponsored by Danielson in 2021 eliminated Colorado’s six-year statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims, but it didn’t help those whose statute of limitations had already expired.

“The problem is that, for the people that this already happened to, the statute of limitations is so small that it closes before most survivors even realize what happened to them and wish to pursue their claims,” Danielson said.

Both CCASA and CHILD USAdvocacy were heavily involved in creating the original 2021 legislation, and worked alongside Danielson, Fields, Duran and other Colorado organizations to draft the amendment that could hit ballots this November.

In order for the proposed amendment to make it onto November’s ballot, the joint resolution must first pass through both Colorado’s House and Senate with a two-thirds majority vote by the end of the legislative session, according to the Colorado General Assembly.

Across the country, other states are passing revival and retrospective legislation to allow survivors a chance at justice, even if the original statute of limitations already expired, Robb said.

Right now, 27 states and three U.S. territories have passed revival legislation or opened temporary windows for people to sue over years-old cases, and 18 states have completely eliminated the state of limitations for child sexual abuse, Robb said.

When states pass this kind of legislation, it’s not only helping get justice for adult victims of child sexual abuse, but also helps expose bad practices and protocols that exist within institutions, organizations and companies, Robb said.

“You’re forcing them to say, ‘We need to clean up our act, do the right thing, set better policies and procedures to respond and to educate our employees that are dealing with children,’” she said. “All of that makes kids safer in the future.”

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