As the impact of the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church increasingly moves toward the nation's courts, lawmakers around the country are debating proposals pioneered in California to extend time limits for criminal prosecutions of abusive priests and for civil lawsuits against church officials accused of shielding them.
The proposals could increase the financial liability of the church, which expects more than 1,000 suits to be filed nationwide this year alleging priests' sexual abuse of minors.
Organizations that lobby on behalf of sex-abuse victims and lawyers who are suing the church are actively pushing measures in at least 15 states.
The receptiveness in those state capitols shows a "heightened awareness by legislators of the extent of the problem and the failure of existing laws," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, most prominent of the victims groups.