Fire Senators Dunleavy, Huggins

To the editor:

My daughter Breanna was murdered by her boyfriend June 26, 2014, as a result of dating violence. I have worked closely with my Rep. Mark Newman to have “teen dating violence awareness education” language merged with Erin’s Law to create one bill called, House Bill 44 — The Alaska Safe Children’s Act.

This bill is a clean bill that only contains two items; Bree’s Law, which teaches teens in grades seventh through 12th about healthy relationships and Erin’s Law that teaches children in kindergarten through high school about personal body safety in an age appropriate way. In a state that has the highest rates of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, domestic/dating violence, and men murdering women; it’s crucial this legislation gets passed immediately!

But somehow, Mat-Su Valley Senators Mike Dunleavy and Charlie Huggins don’t see the urgency of protecting our children. Sen. Dunleavy single-handedly hijacked HB 44 — The Alaska Safe Children’s Act. He chose to not introduce this clean and simple bill to protect our children to the Senate Education Committee, whom he co-chairs with Sen. Huggins. Instead he chose to introduce his own version, a committee substitute version, to replace the original clean three-page version.

This Committee Substitute version he introduced, increased the bill from only two items, Bree’s Law and Erin’s Law, to a whopping 21 items, some of which are extremely controversial. He has single-handedly stopped the ability of this bill to pass; aided and abetted by Senators Cathy Geisel and Huggins.

Any Senators who do not look after the rights of our children to have the education to protect themselves from sexual assault, abuse, and dating violence, do not deserve to represent us as Alaskans. Especially, when the majority of Alaskans support the three page clean version of The Alaska Safe Children’s Act. They are not listening to the will of the people or their constituents. They are ignoring our voices and are doing what they want, in order to further their political agendas and aspirations. Please contact your Senators today and demand they pass the Alaska Safe Children’s Act now!

Butch Moore

Big Lake