O'Flaherty to Resign as House Judiciary Chair

In response to this article and one in another publication, Rep. O'Flaherty's office issued the following brief statement: Representative O’Flaherty is not resigning as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he is simply not seeking re-appointment by Speaker DeLeo to Chair the Judiciary Committee in the new year. He will remain part of House leadership in some other capacity.

Representative Eugene L. O’Flaherty (D), who serves Charlestown and Chelsea, announced recently that he will resign as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee at the end of this session.

His announcement came in response to a column published in the Boston Globe criticizing him for opposing HB 469, a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex offenders. 

The bill, which was released from the Judiciary Committee before the Globe column was published, is clearly a very emotional one.

“Over a decade of running this committee”, said O’Flaherty, “not a session has gone by where I haven’t been vilified personally and otherwise for a piece not moving.”

O’Flaherty said his opposition to the bill is multi-faceted and is not because he is “unconcerned with the murder of children’s souls.”

“The bill, as drafted, I would oppose because, as drafted, it would not pass constitutional muster,” O'Flaherty said.

To bolster his statement, he pointed to his work in 2006, when he increased the statute of limitations on sex offenders when prosecutors were having difficulty prosecuting sexual abuse cases brought against Catholic priests, many of which were based on crimes committed decades earlier.

“Each legislative  session we receive upwards of 900 proposals for us to deliberate on and go through and make sure the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted,” said O’Flaherty. “These things take time.”

O’Flaherty acknowledged that arguing emotional issues can affect him, but says he tries to remain deliberate and constant in his approach.

“The reactionary way of dealing with things has never been my style.” said O’Flaherty. “It’s been more take the heat, explain myself based on nothing more than fact, law, and precedents.”

“I’m not burnt out from my responsibilities, I’m burnt out from the unfair attacks on my character—on who I am—from threatening phone calls to my house, from people calling for protests in front of my house.  I am not burnt out at all from my responsibilities” O'Flaherty said.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve exhausted myself in terms of the time that I’ve put into those issues that were done this session that have taken, in some cases, 7 or 8 years to do, and I feel like I’m at a good place where I can leave this committee, having left some pretty good work product and respectfully ask the speaker to utilize me in another position on the team,"O'Flaherty said.

He added that he has recently declined offers of two other chairmanships that would have paid him more money, but felt that his legal and political experience would be put to better use as chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Now, he’s ready to move on.

The State House News reported Monday that Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo said that a “constitutionally correct” version of HB 469 could be voted into law by July.