Former Judicial Proceedings Chariman Bobby Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) testifies before his old committee. Screenshot.
Former Senate Judicial Proceedings chairman Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) returned to his former committee this week to testify against a high-profile bill that’s a follow-up to a measure he once championed.
The woman who replaced Zirkin in the Senate last year, Sen. Shelly L. Hettleman (D-Baltimore County), has joined Del. CT Wilson (D-Charles) in his fight to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors to launch civil suits. The bill was up in the Judicial Proceedings Committee, where Hettleman serves, on Tuesday.
But in lieu of a packed room full of survivors comforting each other and crying as they waited to testify, almost 200 pages of testimony were submitted to the panel, detailing heartbreaking stories of childhood shame, abuse, molestation and rape.
“In many ways, the COVID protocols under which we’re operating this session will not provide due consideration for a bill like Senate Bill 134,” Hettleman told her committee colleagues, “and if ever there was a time to read the written testimony that’s been submitted, this is it.”
