The Alaska Legislature approved a wide-ranging crime bill on Wednesday, the last day of its regular session. The bill includes measures that raise Alaska’s age of sexual consent to 18 and criminalize child sex abuse material generated by artificial intelligence.
House Bill 239 includes elements of 10 separate proposals introduced this year and last year, plus a few new elements. The primary architect of the legislation, Anchorage Democratic Sen. Matt Claman, calls it the “consolidated public safety bill.”
It passed nearly unanimously: 20-0 in the Senate on Tuesday and 39-1 in the House on Wednesday. It includes proposals put forward by members of the House and Senate’s majority and minority caucuses and the governor.
“It has been a bipartisan effort that includes a number of public safety priorities,” Claman said.
Whether Gov. Mike Dunleavy will sign the bill, though, is unclear.
In a text message to Rep. Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat, moments after the House approved the bill, the governor's legislative director, Jordan Shilling, raised doubts.
"We will find significant legal problems with this bill. Almost guaranteed," he said, adding that the Department of Law had recommended changes.
But House Majority Leader Rep. Chuck Kopp, an Anchorage Republican who sponsored the original version of the bill, said lawmakers had worked hand in hand with the Department of Law in crafting each provision.
“I'm feeling very confident we have a very structurally sound bill,” Kopp said.
In addition to raising the age of consent and banning AI-generated child sex abuse material, the bill:
- Imposes harsher penalties on drivers who leave the scene of a fatal accident
- Closes a loophole in laws against sexual assault by a health care worker
- Speeds the processing and improves the tracking of sexual assault kits
- Creates the crime of mail theft
- Imposes criminal penalties on people who sell, install or manufacture counterfeit airbags
- Allows Alaskans to request minor marijuana convictions prior to legalization be made confidential
- Specifies that tribes can operate state-sanctioned victim counseling centers
- Moves an advisory committee on controlled substances to the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development
- Makes it a crime to view or create images depicting bestiality
- Authorizes the Department of Corrections to release prisoners with permanent or degenerative medical conditions who do not pose a threat to the public.
Sponsors of the various measures included in the bill said they were grateful their priorities made the cut, and some said their proposals would likely not have passed otherwise.
Gray, who has repeatedly pushed to raise the age of consent to 18, said the change would make it easier to prosecute people who sexually assault minors.
“There's nothing that I can think of, nothing that my office will ever do that is as important as what happened today,” Gray said after the bill passed the Senate.
Rep. Sara Hannan, a Juneau Democrat who proposed closing the loophole in sexual assault laws after a high-profile case against a chiropractor faltered last year, said the fact that her bill was included in the package allowed it to move quickly.
“Closing that on a short timeline was really beneficial,” Hannan said. “I don't think my bill would have made it across by itself.”
Rep. Sarah Vance, a Homer Republican who pressed for the provisions regarding AI-generated child sex abuse material, said the bill as a whole protects victims of crime.
"It tells them that we hear them and we're willing to strengthen our laws (to) prevent future crimes and that they will get justice," she said.
But the way the bill moved through the Legislature — leaving the House as a one-subject bill on hit-and-runs, and returning only for an up-or-down concurrence vote — made some lawmakers uncomfortable.
Each of the proposals deserved a more careful look, lawmakers from both parties and both chambers said.
“This is no way to legislate,” said Eagle River Republican Rep. Dan Saddler, who ultimately supported the package.
Rep. Bill Elam, a Soldotna Republican and the only lawmaker to vote no, expressed similar concerns.
But others defended the decision to package the 10 bills. Rep. Andy Josephson estimated that it’d take more than 100 hearings to work through the proposals, all while lawmakers are simultaneously tackling other priorities.
“We wouldn’t do that. There’s no time,” he said.
This story has been updated.
