What has been the legislative outcome (passed, failed, pending) for each state’s age-of-consent proposal since 2020?
Executive summary
No single, comprehensive public tracker in the provided sources lists every state’s post‑2020 age‑of‑consent legislative outcomes; available reporting shows some notable state actions (for example California’s 2020 SB‑145 changed sex‑offender registration discretion but did not lower the consent age [1] [2] [3]) and more recent bills through 2025 include proposals to raise or change consent or related statutes in states such as Oklahoma (bill to raise statutory‑rape threshold to 18, passed House and sent toward governor in 2025) and Missouri (HB1471 filed in 2025) but a full, state‑by‑state “passed/failed/pending since 2020” inventory is not present in the sources supplied [4] [5] [1].
1. A patchwork of changes — not a nationwide reform push
State law reports in the supplied material confirm the age of consent remains set individually by states (most commonly 16, 17, or 18) and that changes tend to be discrete, state‑level bills rather than part of a unified national movement; the Justice Department’s compilation and other state summaries show the historic distribution (majority at 16; some at 17 or 18) but do not present a completed, comprehensive post‑2020 table of outcomes for all 50 states [6] [7] [8].
2. California’s 2020 action is often misread — registry change, not consent change
California SB‑145 received national attention and political attacks, but reporters, advocacy groups, and legal guides in the materials emphasize it did not change the state’s age of consent (still 18); instead it allowed judges discretion to waive sex‑offender registration in narrow close‑in‑age circumstances and to end discriminatory registry treatment of LGBTQ youth — a change supporters framed as criminal‑justice reform and critics weaponized politically [1] [2] [3].
3. Examples of post‑2020 legislative movement in individual states
The supplied sources document specific actions through 2024–2025: Oklahoma’s House‑passed measure (HB1003) to raise the statutory‑rape threshold from 16 to 18 was advanced in 2025 [4]; Missouri shows a 2025 bill (HB1471) described as modifying the age of consent but the materials do not summarize its final status [5]. Utah adopted a 2024‑2025 change that carved a narrow prosecutorial alternative for certain 18‑year‑old high‑school students in sexual conduct cases with much younger teens — a controversial tweak that drew legislators’ ire and further debate [9].
4. What the sources do not provide — limits of available reporting
The provided search results do not include a single, sourced table giving each state’s proposal and its final status (passed/failed/pending) since 2020. The sources include general primers, selective news accounts (notably California), and scattered bill pages or state press releases (Oklahoma, Missouri), but they do not allow a verified, state‑by‑state outcome list since 2020. Where no source is present, I will not assert a state’s legislative fate — available sources do not mention complete national outcomes [8] [7] [10].
5. How to interpret bills vs. law — common confusions surfaced in coverage
The materials show recurring public confusion: bills that affect sex‑offender registration, close‑in‑age exemptions, or medical‑consent ages are sometimes conflated with changing the legal age of sexual consent. Snopes, the LA Times, legal guides, and advocates repeatedly note that registry reforms, Romeo‑and‑Juliet exceptions, or civil‑marriage‑age changes are distinct from altering the statutory age of consent itself — a distinction that explains why viral claims (e.g., “age of consent lowered to 4”) were debunked as false or misframed [11] [1] [3].
6. Competing viewpoints and political uses of the issue
When reform bills surface, advocacy organizations and partisan actors frame them very differently: proponents present narrow legal fixes (equity for LGBTQ youth, close‑in‑age fairness, or protections against child marriage), while opponents often portray any change as “softening” protections for children — a dynamic visible in the reaction to California’s SB‑145, where defenders (Equality California, bill sponsors) emphasized remedial equity and critics equated the measure to permissiveness [1] [2].
7. Practical next steps to build the full inventory you asked for
To produce a rigorously cited, state‑by‑state table of “passed/failed/pending since 2020,” one must consult (and cite) each state legislature’s bill records or an authoritative tracker that compiles those outcomes. The supplied sources do not include such a dataset; if you want, I can: (a) attempt to compile outcomes only for states specifically cited in these results (California, Oklahoma, Missouri, Utah, Alabama medical‑consent change) using the present sources, or (b) you can allow me to search state legislature pages and news databases beyond the current set to assemble the full 50‑state inventory. Current reporting does document individual measures (e.g., CA SB‑145 in 2020; OK HB1003 in 2025; MO HB1471 filed in 2025; Utah statute changes in 2024) but not a complete national outcome list [1] [4] [5] [9] [12].