Down the rabbit hole we go. A fairy tale is a story in which improbable events lead to a happy ending, or it is a made-up story that is usually designed to mislead. On April 1, as I was listening to invited testimony for SB 91, The Omnibus Crime Bill, in Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Anna MacKinnon told such a tale, in which deliberate acts by a senator, to kill the Alaska Safe Children’s Act, were now being magically spun as heroic acts that actually saved it.
At the conclusion of her invited testimony on SB91, Lauree Morton, Executive Director of the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (CDVSA), spoke compellingly about the Alaska Safe Children’s Act (know as Bree’s Law and Erin’s Law). She relayed her thoughts on how this critical education will empower teachers, parents and children to help reduce the incidences of sexual assault, dating violence and domestic violence in our state. How, with this repeated education year after year throughout the child’s schooling, the net effect will be fewer perpetrations of domestic violence and sexual assault, ultimately resulting in fewer incarcerations, thus helping to ease our exploding prison population.
This is where Sen. MacKinnon suddenly took a detour from the Omnibus Crime Bill discussion and started on a bizarre praising of Sen. Mike Dunleavy and his role in the passage of Alaska Safe Children’s Act. In that moment, a new version of reality was being written by MacKinnon, one in which Dunleavy was the hero who did everything in his power to get the Alaska Safe Children’s Act passed.
In this rewrite of history, MacKinnon stated, “I just wanted to thank Sen. Dunleavy!” She went on to say, “I know there was some controversy, and I felt like Sen. Dunleavy received some unfair criticism on the issue of sexual violence and child education over the last couple of years, and it would have not happened without the help of him.” That suggests if it hadn’t been for Sen. Dunleavy, the Alaska Safe Children’s Act would have never been passed.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Sen. Dunleavy was the driving force behind trying to kill the Alaska Safe Children’s Act by his introduction of a committee substitute version of the bill after the House had already approved the original bill. This substitute version added divisive and unpopular language, including four Senate bills that wouldn’t otherwise have passed on their own. The most controversial bill he added was SB89, a bill barring abortion service providers from schools, which Sen. MacKinnon is a co-sponsor. Sen. Dunleavy weakened Bree’s Law and Erin’s Law so much by adding 22 items to a simple, clean, two-item bill, which the House pledged to kill when it came back to them for a vote. The biggest roadblock, added by Sen. Dunleavy, was his change to make the education “optional” and opt-in versus opt-out. He also added language to restrict sex education, standardized testing, college readiness standards, and much more.
Making the Alaska Safe Children’s Act opt-in versus opt-out would have completely defeated the purpose of the bill, which was to bring awareness and prevention education of sexual abuse and assault and dating violence to all of our children. I encourage everyone who wants the true history of what took place, to type “Senator Dunleavy HB44 The Alaska Safe Children’s Act” into Google.
What is disheartening is Sen. MacKinnon could have taken the opportunity to thank Sen. Millett, the bill sponsor, and Gov. Bill Walker, for making the Alaska Safe Children’s Act a priority by putting it on the special session agenda last year. Disappointingly, Sen. MacKinnon instead chose to praise the one person responsible for almost killing the bill, Sen. Dunleavy.
Sen. MacKinnon may think she can rewrite history, as to what actually transpired during the fight to get the Alaska Safe Children’s Act passed. But as someone who knows the truth of what actually happened, I feel compelled to speak out on her misguided attempts to give credit where credit is not due.
• Cindy Moore is the mother of Breanna “Bree” Moore and an advocate for laws protecting children from dating, sexual, and other violence, including The Alaska Safe Children’s Act, also known as Bree’s Law & Erin’s Law. She resides in Anchorage. This piece previously ran in the Alaska Dispatch News.
