Would a third public hearing on Gov. Mike Dunleay’s “parental rights” legislation have been the charm to deliver the support that its backers claimed is out there? We’ll never know.
An unusual third public hearing on House Bill 105, legislation that would among many things bar teachers from talking about gender or sex without written parental permission, was on the House Education Committee’s schedule for this morning but it was canceled minutes into the meeting.
The committee’s co-Chair Rep. Jamie Allard, an Eagle River Republican who has been an outspoken supporter of the legislation, seemed to suggest that the posting was made in error when putting together the week’s schedule. The committee took no other action with the bill today.
Fellow committee co-Chair Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Kenai, noted many people had the impression there would be hearing and called into both the hearing and his legislative office.
“So, potentially there was some confusion about what was happening with that. I’m not sure what else to do except to explain that you were closing public testimony this morning,” he said to Allard during the hearing. “Hopefully folks are understanding of that, and we can move on.”
House Bill 105 has been in the House Education Committee since it was officially introduced on March 8 by Gov. Dunleavy. While it’s been pitched as a measure to improve parent involvement in education, it’s been criticized as nothing but an overture to conservative culture wars that would make life more difficult for LGBTQ students.
In addition to banning teachers from talking about sex or gender identity without written approval, the measure would dictate who can use which bathrooms, require parental approval for a child to change their nickname or pronouns, and potentially force teachers to out students to their parents. It also redefines that state’s sex abuse awareness and teen dating violence programs as sex ed, ensuring young students will not receive age-appropriate education about identifying and preventing sex abuse.
“It lets rapists be rapists,” one testifier said during the first hearing on the bill.
Allard frequently clashed with the opponents who have dominated the two multi-hour public hearings held on the bill so far, claiming that concerns about the legislation’s impact on LGBTQ students or already-high suicide rates among LGBTQ youth are unfounded.
“The media has misled the public about the realities of HB105, provoking inflammatory responses and outrageous accusations that the bill somehow endangers and discriminates against gender non-conforming students,” she wrote in a Facebook post promoting the second hearing.
It doesn’t appear Allard promoted the third hearing on social media, but also didn’t post about the notice of the hearing being a mistake since the schedule was posted last Thursday.
House Bill 105 has been scheduled to be heard at the committee’s Wednesday and Friday hearings, which are both scheduled for 8 a.m.
Written comment on any legislation in the House Education Committee can be sent to house.education@akleg.gov.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
