The start of Alaska’s annual legislative session is just over a week away. And there’s plenty on the agenda for lawmakers this year, from a possible gas pipeline to a plan to stabilize the state’s finances. But lawmakers have some other ideas they’d like to discuss in the next four months, too. Alaskans got their first look at a set of pre-filed bills ahead of this year's session on Friday.
Some would make minor tweaks to state law, like Senate Bill 202, from Anchorage Democratic Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, that would set up a two-year term for chair of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s board of directors. There’s currently no set term for the board chair, and Gray-Jackson said her bill seeks to align AIDEA with other state boards.
"I've never heard a board that has a chair elected indefinitely," Gray-Jackson said.
Some other bills, like House Bill 237 from Wasilla Republican Rep. Jubilee Underwood, take bigger swings. Her proposal that would revamp the way Alaska’s public schools teach mathematics.
"This is kind of modeled after kind of the Reads Act, but in the math area," Underwood said.
Underwood said she was inspired by the "tremendous" improvement in reading scores since lawmakers set up a targeted series of interventions for struggling students with the Alaska Reads Act in 2022. Underwood’s bill would essentially seek to ensure students are ready to take on algebra by the time they get to high school — and also push high-achieving students to take more advanced math classes.
"Getting them proficient in reading, in math, I just feel like will really push our scores and our testing forward, which is what I feel like Alaskans are kind of screaming for," she said. "They want better outcomes."
Of course, lots of bills get introduced. A much smaller share winds up passing. Between 2023 and 2024, only about 15% of all bills introduced passed both houses of the Alaska Legislature.
And Underwood and Gray-Jackson both readily acknowledged their bills might not pass this year. But they said it was important to get the ball rolling — to start a conversation that might lead to changes down the road.
Democratic Juneau Rep. Sara Hannan has one conversation-starter: House Bill 250 would greatly restrict law enforcement agents from concealing their identities behind masks.
“There's been a lot of concern about (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents,” Hannan said. She said raids featuring unidentified masked federal agents "to many people, resembled random kidnappings."
Hannan said the bill likely wouldn’t in practice bar federal agents from wearing masks, since federal law and the Constitution make it difficult to prosecute federal agents under state law for carrying out their official duties. And she acknowledged that it’s a controversial issue, making the bill harder to get across the finish line.
But Hannan said another bill on her agenda is much more doable — House Bill 242, closing a loophole in the state’s sexual assault laws.
Last year, a judge dismissed a charge in a high-profile sexual assault case against a former Juneau chiropractor. That’s because current law, paradoxically, makes it impossible to prosecute a medical provider for sexual assault if the victim knows they’re being assaulted.
Hannan said that was an unintended consequence of an earlier attempt to revamp the state’s laws around sexual consent. And, she said, she’d like to fix it.
"I don't believe that that's good policy," she said. "I also don't believe it was ever the intent of laws to allow that to be an offense that's not prosecutable."
Rep. David Nelson said he’d like to get a couple bills across the finish line this year, too. The Republican representing North Anchorage is not running for reelection and is in his final year in office.
One bill, House Bill 240, would require school districts to come up with policies to combat digital impersonation and harassment — basically, using AI to create fake images, video or audio of another student.
"There's not a silver bullet that's going to solve everything, but if we're starting to have incremental approaches to help with younger individuals mental health, I think that's something that we should definitely look into and work on," Nelson said.
Nelson said he’d also like lawmakers to pass House Bill 241, which would allow some psychologists licensed in other states to practice in Alaska. That’s an especially common job for military spouses, and license reciprocity would be a big help to military families deployed to the 49th state, Nelson said.
Lawmakers will have 121 days to determine what moves forward, and what doesn’t, starting Jan. 20.
