Advocates and lawmakers from across the political spectrum are objecting to a move by Sen. Mike Dunleavy, R-Wasilla, to make broad changes to a sexual abuse education and prevention bill that Gov. Bill Walker has asked the Alaska Legislature to pass during its special session.
House Bill 44, sponsored by Rep. Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage, would have required school districts to give students information about sexual abuse and dating violence, with an emphasis on prevention and awareness. The measure, which passed the House in April by a 34-6 vote, contains portions identical to a bill known as Erin's Law, which has been pushed by an Anchorage Democrat, Rep. Geran Tarr.
Dunleavy, a social conservative who chairs the Senate Education Committee, unveiled a substitute for Millett's bill at a hearing Tuesday in Anchorage.
It would make the sexual abuse and dating violence education programs optional rather than mandatory. And it also tacks on elements borrowed from three other bills -- including one controversial piece that would bar "abortion services providers" like Planned Parenthood from teaching students about sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases.
At the hearing, the mother of a 20-year-old woman shot to death last year on the Anchorage Hillside testified that Dunleavy's new version of the bill was "not appropriate."
"The way I see it is that we've taken a well-manicured bill and we've basically turned it into a junkyard," said the woman, Cindy Moore. "I'm asking all of you to reconsider this."
The boyfriend of Moore's daughter has been charged with murder.
In an interview after the hearing, Dunleavy said he understood the objections from Moore and others, but he added that they were "focused on the one component of that bill, as it should be."
Other elements of Dunleavy's substitute include the elimination of a requirement that all high school students take a college readiness test like the SAT and barring schools from giving students a questionnaire or survey without getting permission from their parents.
Another piece would require school districts to get parents' permission before their children can participate in classes involving "human reproduction or sexual matters."
Dunleavy said he added the new elements because they were parts of other bills that the Legislature didn't have time to pass during its regular session, which concluded in late April.
"The idea was, 'Why not wrap all these up together, get them passed now?' Then they're off the table," Dunleavy said. "Then we can look at other educational bills next year, instead of rehashing."
Some of Dunleavy's proposed changes, however, "sound very polarizing," said Millett, sponsor of the original bill.
In a phone interview from Juneau, Millett said she was willing to consider the ideas contained in Dunleavy's 12-page substitute.
"It's a fair conversation to have, and he's chair of the education committee so it's obviously within his purview to amend a bill. But I wish it would have stayed the three-page bill we had originally passed in the House," she said. "But legislation doesn't always happen that way."
Dunleavy's proposed changes draw from three other bills -- two of which he sponsored himself and which Millett pointed out were never discussed in the House.
Tarr, who's been pushing since last year for passage of legislation like Millett's, held her own public hearing on HB 44 Tuesday evening.
She said Dunleavy's proposed changes involving abortion services providers were "highly controversial" and might "kill the bill."
"To just insert it into a bill when it hasn't had a single hearing in the House I think is an abuse of the process," she said in an interview.
Walker asked the Legislature to consider Millett's bill when he ordered lawmakers into a special session late last month. Walker's spokeswoman said in an email Tuesday that Walker hadn't seen the changes proposed by Dunleavy.
Dunleavy said he hoped to move his substitute bill out of the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, and if that happens, it would move next to the Senate Finance Committee.
Dunleavy said he considered the possibility that his changes could thwart the passage of the pieces in Millett's original bill.
"But just in talking to people, I don't think that's going to happen," he said. "I would hope it wouldn't happen, because I think the items in all aspects of this bill are good things for Alaska, good things for its people, good things for its kids."