Move the law
this year.

Sign for mandated-reporter expansion.

Add your name to the four-state petition asking legislatures to expand the mandated-reporter list and close clergy-related confidentiality carve-outs. Signatures join the public record delivered to each state's coalition partners.

Where your signature lands.

Each state's signature batch goes to a specific delivery package (bill sponsors, committee staff, coalition partners) based on where that state's reform sits right now.

• ALAlabamaAction neededAlabama names clergy as mandatory reporters, then preserves a carveout for confidential religious communications. Courts have read it narrowly, but narrow is not closed: when a disclosure happens inside one of those communications, the law treats silence as compliance. The state needs to close the carveout so a confidential setting is no excuse to stay silent.→
• AKAlaskaAction neededAlaska's reporting law lists nine kinds of reporters and skips clergy entirely. Its privilege rule sets aside the doctor and spouse privileges but says nothing about clergy-penitent, leaving that shield in place. The last serious bill to close the gap stalled in committee back in 2003. The state needs to name clergy as reporters and lift the privilege for child-abuse disclosures.→
• AZArizonaActive pushArizona names clergy as mandatory reporters, then lets the clergy member and the religious institution decide alone whether a disclosure has to be reported. No court reviews that call. The duty is on the page; the discretion stays in the church. The state needs to take that choice out of the institution's hands.→
• ARArkansasAction neededArkansas names clergy as mandatory reporters, then carves out two exceptions in the same paragraph. One follows the usual confession-privilege form. The other excuses the offender's own admission, which is exactly the disclosure that should reach protective services. The state needs to remove both carveouts so an admission of abuse is reported, not shielded.→
• CACaliforniaAction neededCalifornia names clergy as mandatory reporters, but the law still exempts what a clergy member learns in confession. They must report abuse disclosed in any other setting, yet a confession stays sealed. The state needs to remove the confession carveout so abuse disclosed to clergy is reported like any other.→
• COColoradoAction neededColorado strips almost every professional privilege when a child-abuse report is at stake, but leaves the clergy-penitent privilege standing. That contrast is the clearest sign the carveout is a deliberate choice, not an oversight. The state needs to remove the clergy privilege so it is treated like every other.→
• CTConnecticutAction neededConnecticut's reporting law says nothing about clergy-penitent privilege at all. A separate privilege sits one chapter over in the evidence code, and whether it quietly relieves the duty to report is unresolved. The silence itself is the dodge. The state needs to say plainly that the privilege does not excuse reporting child abuse.→
• DEDelawareRecent attemptDelaware requires every person to report suspected child abuse, then carves out the one place abuse is known to surface: a sacramental confession. There, clergy can hear a disclosure and owe no duty to report. A 2023 bill to erase the carveout died without a vote. The state needs to close the confession carveout.→
• FLFloridaAction neededFlorida writes the clergy-penitent exemption directly into its child-abuse reporting law. The statute sets aside most privileges in abuse cases but preserves the clergy-penitent privilege by name. A 2025 appeals decision showed the carveout at work, reversing child sexual abuse convictions because a pastor's confidential testimony should have been excluded. Recent bills raise penalties but leave the exemption itself in place. The state needs to remove the clergy-penitent carveout, not just raise the penalty around it.→
• GAGeorgiaRecent attemptGeorgia overrides every privilege when child abuse is on the line except the one religious institutions get to define for themselves. A recent law punishes clergy who commit abuse, but the law still protects clergy who hear of it and stay silent, because a church can decide which conversations count as sacramental. Two bills in 2025-26 tried to close that carveout and failed. The state needs to remove it.→
• HIHawaiiRecent attemptHawaii's 2023 law looks like reform but only reaches future abuse a clergy member believes will be especially cruel. A survivor disclosing past abuse in confession, an ongoing pattern that doesn't meet that extreme bar, and the courtroom privilege are all still protected. A 2024 attempt to broaden the rule died in committee. The state needs to cover past and ongoing abuse, not just the rare extreme case.→
• IDIdahoAction needed**A universal reporting law with exactly one exception, and that exception shields religious institutions.** Idaho has amended its reporting rules repeatedly without ever touching the clergy carveout, which is what makes it a reform gap.→
• ILIllinoisAction neededIllinois names clergy as mandatory reporters and preserves the clergy-penitent privilege in the same provision. Courts have narrowed the privilege but not erased it, so a clergy member whose denomination requires confessional secrecy can still invoke it and decline to report. The state needs to remove the privilege carveout from the reporting duty.→
• INIndianaAction neededIndiana lists the privileges that cannot block a child-abuse report and pointedly leaves clergy-penitent off the list. A separate clergy privilege sits in the evidence code, and whether clergy can use it to refuse reporting is unsettled. A sweeping 2025 reform tightened the duty everywhere else and left this question untouched. The state needs to settle it by stripping the privilege for child-abuse disclosures.→
• IAIowaAction neededIowa's reporting law says nothing about the clergy-penitent privilege. It overrides the spouse, doctor, and mental-health privileges in child-abuse cases but never reaches the clergy privilege, which stays fully in place. The state needs to add the clergy privilege to the list of privileges that fall away when child abuse is reported.→
• KSKansasRecent attemptKansas's reporting law says nothing about clergy or privilege, and a separate evidence law protects penitential communications with no exception for child abuse. A clergy member who learns of abuse in confession or counseling carries no duty to report and can point to a privilege the legislature has deliberately left in place. The state needs to add clergy to the reporting law and remove the privilege for child-abuse disclosures.→
• KYKentuckyAction neededKentucky's reporting duty covers every person, then carves the clergy-penitent privilege out of an otherwise sweeping override. Of all professional relationships, only attorney-client and clergy-penitent keep their privilege when child abuse is at stake, so a clergy member who hears a disclosure in confidence can lawfully decline to report. The state needs to remove the clergy carveout.→
• LALouisianaAction neededLouisiana names clergy as mandatory reporters, then writes the confessor out of the definition before the duty ever attaches, so a priest hearing sacramental confession simply does not count as a reporter. The state's highest court confirmed this, and the legislature revisited the statute in 2024 and 2025 and left the carveout in place. The state needs to make the confessor a reporter like everyone else.→
• MEMaineAction neededMaine names clergy as mandatory reporters, then in the same clause excepts information received in confidential communications. What counts as confidential is set by an evidence rule, not the reporting statute, so a clergy member who learns of abuse in any setting that rule covers is not required to report. The state needs to remove the confidential-communication exception.→
• MDMarylandAction neededMaryland excuses clergy from reporting when a disclosure falls under the clergy-penitent privilege, is made in a religious capacity, and is bound to secrecy by church practice. Outside that zone clergy must report, but the open question is how broadly churches and courts read what counts as church-enjoined discipline. The state needs to narrow or remove that carveout so the church can't set its own edge.→
• MAMassachusettsAction neededMassachusetts overrides the clergy privilege, then in the same statute carves confession back out: clergy need not report what they learn solely in a confession or similar confidential communication. Sacramental disclosures fall outside the duty unless the clergy member is also acting in another reporting role. The state needs to remove the confession carveout.→
• MIMichiganAction neededA Michigan appeals court stretched a narrow statutory phrase into a broad shield: it threw out a failure-to-report charge against a pastor by reading 'similarly confidential communication' to cover an ordinary private conversation with a worried parishioner. No confession, no sacrament required. Now almost any pastoral conversation a parishioner expects to be private fits the exception, and only the legislature can narrow what the court widened. The state needs to rewrite the phrase the court read so broadly.→
• MNMinnesotaRecent attemptMinnesota's recent reform bills expand who has to report but leave the confession carveout untouched. The proposals reach more clergy and lift an old time limit, yet they keep the exemption that lets confessions and spiritual-counseling disclosures go unreported. That is the exact setting where abuse has been shown to surface. The state needs to close the confession carveout, not just widen the list of reporters.→
• MSMississippiAction neededMississippi names ministers as reporters and threatens jail time, but a separate privilege statute lets churches keep the same disclosures out of court, and the state's highest court has applied that privilege in a child-abuse case. The legislature has never said which statute wins. The state needs to settle that the reporting duty beats the privilege.→
• MOMissouriActive pushMissouri names clergy as mandatory reporters, then preserves the one privilege that lets them never report what they hear, protected by two statutes at once. A second layer lets a religious organization name its own internal agent to receive any report, so even when a duty exists the institution controls who hears about it first. The state needs to remove the privilege and the self-policing channel.→
• MTMontanaRecent attemptMontana's mandatory reporting law has a built-in clergy carveout the state supreme court has already read broadly and upheld. While clergy are named in mandatory reporting laws, the laws also exempt any communication deemed "confidential" by the religious institution, allowing the religious organization to cover up information at its own will.→
• NENebraskaAction neededNebraska sets aside three privileges in child-abuse cases but not the clergy-penitent privilege, which stays intact. Clergy aren't even named as reporters; they're covered only by an 'any other person' catchall the federal government reads as not naming clergy at all. The duty to report and the privilege to stay silent run side by side with nothing resolving the conflict. The state needs to name clergy and lift the privilege.→
• NVNevadaAction neededNevada names clergy as required reporters, then in the same clause carves out what a clergy member learns from the offender during a confession. A separate provision strips other privileges from reporters, but only as far as the duty reaches, and that carveout has already pulled the duty back. The most common pastoral disclosure, the perpetrator confessing to clergy, is the exact one the law will not reach. The state needs to remove the perpetrator-confession carveout.→
• NHNew HampshireNo clergy loopholeNew Hampshire has closed both gaps UCO tracks: clergy are named outright and the clergy-penitent privilege does not apply. There is no carveout left to close here. The remaining work is national, holding every state still running a carveout to the standard New Hampshire set in 1979.→
• NJNew JerseyAction neededNew Jersey's any-person duty looks universal, but the courts have carved out the very disclosures the law was meant to surface. The state never wrote a clergy exception into the reporting law, but the cleric-penitent privilege has no child-abuse exception, and the state's highest court used it to bar a pastor's testimony about a confidential disclosure of child sexual abuse. A 2019 rewrite raised penalties but left the privilege alone. The state needs to add a child-abuse exception to the privilege.→
• NMNew MexicoAction neededNew Mexico's reporting duty turns off the moment a pastoral conversation counts as privileged, and what counts as privileged is set by a court rule, not the statute. The legislature can list clergy as reporters all it wants; only the state Supreme Court controls which communications fall inside the privilege. No recent bill has addressed the split. The state needs to override the privilege for child-abuse disclosures by statute.→
• NYNew YorkActive pushNew York simply leaves clergy off its list of mandatory reporters. The reporting law names roughly 40 professions but not clergy, and a separate evidence law shields confessional and spiritual-advice communications from court. Lawmakers have known clergy are missing since 2019 and have chosen, session after session, not to add them. The state needs to name clergy as mandatory reporters and remove the privilege shield.→
• NCNorth CarolinaAction neededNorth Carolina's law is strong: clergy, doctors, and spouses cannot use privilege to avoid reporting suspected child abuse. The one narrow exception covers an attorney representing a client in the abuse case itself. Here the work is not new legislation but consistent enforcement of the duty the law already imposes.→
• NDNorth DakotaRecent attemptNorth Dakota's carveout protects the exact setting where children are most likely to disclose: a private pastoral conversation. A 2021 bill aimed at that exemption never advanced, and the carveout remains. The state needs to repeal it so a disclosure to clergy carries the same duty as any other.→
• OHOhioAction neededOhio's gap is built into the law's design, not left out by accident. The statute names clergy and then preserves the clergy-penitent privilege. It adds a child-abuse exception that looks like the fix, then carves the confessional back out of that exception under a 'sacred trust' label, and lets the church itself decide what counts. The result is a duty to report that the religious institution can switch off. The state needs to remove the carveout so the church cannot decide when the law applies.→
• OKOklahomaAction neededOklahoma's dodge is a six-month delay built into the penalty. A clergy member or institutional official can knowingly sit on knowledge of ongoing abuse for up to six months and still face only a misdemeanor; the felony doesn't apply until someone has had at least six months of knowledge. The state needs to remove the six-month floor so institutional silence isn't a half-year free pass.→
• OROregonAction neededOregon names clergy as mandatory reporters, then preserves a privilege that goes further than most: when a church imposes absolute secrecy, the clergy member cannot be questioned about the communication even if the penitent consents. The religious institution itself decides when consent stops mattering. A 2022 review found no reform attempt in the prior decade. The state needs to remove the privilege so the church can't override the survivor's own consent.→
• PAPennsylvaniaAction neededPennsylvania says privilege does not relieve the duty to report, then one subsection later points to another statute and preserves confidential clergy communications by reference, putting the shield back where the override seemed to remove it. A pending case is the live test of how broadly that cross-reference can be read. The state needs to delete the pointer that restores the confessional shield.→
• RIRhode IslandActive pushRhode Island's reporting law is strong, and in June 2026 the state opened a two-year window for survivors to sue the institutions that hid the abuse. What is left is a companion bill that would spell out religious organizations and clergy in the reporting law. It passed the House and is now waiting on the state Senate.→
• SCSouth CarolinaAction neededSouth Carolina makes clergy report abuse they learn from anyone except the person who committed it. A disclosure that comes directly from the perpetrator, through the protected confessional channel, carries no duty to report. The law closes every door except the one the perpetrator walks through. The state needs to remove the perpetrator-confession carveout.→
• SDSouth DakotaRecent attemptSouth Dakota leaves clergy off both lists that matter: the roughly 14 professions required to report, and the privileges that fall away in child-abuse cases. In the 2026 session lawmakers voted clergy down in committee while adding school coaches to the reporter list. Clergy was the one category they refused to add. The state needs to name clergy as reporters and lift the privilege.→
• TNTennesseeAction neededTennessee's all-person rule sounds complete, but its privilege-override leaves clergy-penitent off the list. A separate override covers child sexual abuse, yet for physical abuse and neglect no statute squarely says whether the privilege beats the reporting duty. No bill has been introduced to close the gap. The state needs to extend the override to clergy for every kind of abuse.→
• TXTexasNo clergy loopholeTexas has the law UCO is fighting for: clergy are named as reporters, the duty applies with no exception, and courts have confirmed the privilege is overridden even in criminal cases. The gap here is enforcement, not text. No prosecutions of Texas clergy for failing to report have surfaced in the research, and the legislature's own 2025 response acknowledged these offenses 'go unpunished in many cases.' The work is making the strong law on the books actually enforced.→
• UTUtahRecent attemptUtah's 2024 law says clergy may report a confession, not that they must. The mandatory-reporting carveout is untouched, so a sealed confession stays sealed. The state needs to make reporting a confession of abuse mandatory, not optional.→
• VTVermontActive pushVermont's exception protects exactly where abuse is known to surface: confessions and confidential pastoral conversations. A 2022 investigation exposed the loophole, and two repeal bills in a row have stalled against opposition from religious institutions. This isn't a court ruling; it's the legislature itself keeping the door open. The state needs to pass the repeal.→
• VAVirginiaAction neededVirginia names clergy as mandatory reporters, then in the same subsection exempts anything religious doctrine requires to be kept confidential. Under state case law the privilege belongs to the clergyperson, not the survivor, so the choice to disclose or stay silent sits with the institution's representative. The state needs to remove the doctrine-confidentiality exemption.→
• WAWashingtonRecent attemptThe current WA law includes a carveout from its mandatory reporter laws for confessional disclosures. The WA state legislature passed a reform bill that would have closed that door in 2025; however, a federal court blocked it months later. The state still needs to remove the clergy-exemption from mandatory reporter laws.→
• WVWest VirginiaNo clergy loopholeWest Virginia's text closes the door other states leave open, but the lock has never been tested. No prosecution, no compliance audit, and no court decision on how the override works in practice has surfaced. The gap here is not a carveout; it's the absence of any visible accountability behind a strong law. The work here is enforcement and proof the law is used.→
• WIWisconsinRecent attemptWisconsin's carveout covers exactly the communication that matters most: it exempts anything received in any setting a religious institution designates as confidential, even by unwritten tradition. That lets the church set the boundary itself. Repeal bills in 2019 and 2021 both stalled. The state needs to repeal the carveout so the church can't define its own exemption.→
• WYWyomingAction neededThe WY law 14-3-205 keeps the clergy-penitent loophole in place. The dodge is structural: the reporting duty looks strong on the surface, but the evidence provision keeps confessional disclosures from ever reaching a courtroom.→