O’flaherty Mulling over Committee Change

Representative Gene O’Flaherty says he is contemplating resigning from his chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee, which he has headed for almost a decade.

If things don’t change, he will likely be leaving in December, he told the Patriot-Bridge earlier this week.

O’Flaherty told the Boston Globe he was resigning his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee last week following a rather heated exchange in which he said he did not want to be personified as having the souls of those who had suffered at the hands of pedophile priests on his back because he was favoring a statute of limitations being placed on those who claim to have been sexually abused by priests.

As the leader of Judiciary, O’Flaherty was doing his duty preparing a bill asked for by 100 of his colleagues in government. He was not offering legislation himself, as suggested in Cullen’s column.

As a result, he made an announcement that would be leaving the chairmanship as a way of ending such depictions of him which he felt were unfounded and unfair.

“I have full faith in Gene O’Flaherty,” said House Speaker Robert DeLeo. “I’d like to see him stay on as the chair of Judiciary but if he feels the need to move on, I respect that.”

News that Flaherty said he would be resigning his chairmanship prompted some to think that he was leaving the House altogether.

“Please allow me to correct that impression. I will remain the representative in Charlestown and Chelsea,” he said. “I am proud to represent Charlestown and Chelsea and I will continue to do so, hopefully, for a good long time if the people will have me.”

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