Bob Latta Controversy Ohio

In 2006, Bob Latta Voted Against Letting Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse in Ohio Sue Over Abuse From Decades Earlier

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed a one-year window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue over assaults as old as 35 years. After Catholic Church lobbying, a House committee stripped it out. On March 29, 2006, state Rep. Bob Latta was one of 57 House members who voted against putting it back.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 25, 2026

Twenty years ago, Ohio had a chance to let survivors of childhood sexual abuse take their abusers, and the institutions that hid them, to court. Bob Latta, then a Republican state representative from Bowling Green, voted against it.

TiffinOhio.net dug up the vote this week, and it is documented in the Toledo Blade's coverage from the day after.

What the window would have done

Ohio's statute of limitations had already barred many adults abused as children from suing. Senate Bill 17, as the Senate passed it, would have opened a one-time, one-year window for survivors to file lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse that happened as long as 35 years earlier. Lawsuits could also have let survivors use the court process to get records from institutions accused of covering up abuse.

The Ohio Senate had passed the bill with that window in it unanimously, a year earlier.

Then it reached the Ohio House. The bulk of the attention was on the Catholic Church, which had faced lawsuits over abuse by priests. The Catholic Conference of Ohio argued the window was unconstitutional. The Blade reported that bishops held rare meetings with legislative leaders, and one bishop gave unprecedented testimony before a legislative committee. A House committee deleted the window. Under Speaker Jon Husted, the window was stripped from the bill.

March 29, 2006

Democrats tried to put the window back on the House floor. The Blade described House members walking past photographs of children and chants of "Shame on you" shortly before the vote.

The amendment failed, 57 to 38. One Republican joined the Democrats to restore the window.

Bob Latta was not that Republican. The Blade listed him by name among the northwest Ohio Republicans who opposed the amendment.

In its place, the House added a civil registry, a public list where a court could place an accused abuser's name. Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, called it "a shallow, empty promise that will provide no measure of protection for children or justice for victims." The bill did make it a crime for clergy to fail to report suspected abuse, and it gave future victims more time to sue. But it shut the door on everyone whose deadline had already passed.

Ohio is trying again

The fight never really ended. TiffinOhio.net reports that in September 2026, Republican state Sen. Bill Blessing announced plans for legislation that would eliminate time limits for childhood sexual abuse claims and open a new window for survivors whose lawsuits have been barred for decades. Survivors who were turned away in 2006 are still waiting.

Latta went to Congress the next year and has held Ohio's 5th District seat since. He hasn't been easy for constituents to reach there either: twice in 2025, constituents held town halls for him and talked to an empty chair.

What the record shows

In 2006, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a one-year window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue over assaults as old as 35 years. After lobbying by the Catholic Church, a House committee stripped it out, and on March 29, 2006, state Rep. Bob Latta was one of the 57 House members who voted against restoring it. The amendment failed 57 to 38, and survivors whose deadlines had passed lost their chance to sue.