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Which U.S. states have proposed lowering the age of sexual consent since 2020 and who sponsored those bills?
Executive summary
Reporting and fact‑checks show no widespread, serious effort since 2020 to lower U.S. sexual‑consent ages to toddlers or similar extremes; the U.S. age of consent still ranges between 16 and 18 by state (most commonly 16) [1] [2]. What the sources do document since 2020 are narrower reforms — changes to penalties, registry rules, therapy‑consent bills, and occasional proposals affecting marriage or related criminal‑justice ages — rather than wholesale reductions of statutory consent ages [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. What the mainstream record actually shows: states tweaked related rules, not the age of consent
Since 2020 the better‑documented legislative activity involves adjustments to how statutes are enforced (for example, judicial discretion on sex‑offender registration), changes to marriage‑age rules, and other age‑related reforms — not bills that lower the baseline statutory age of sexual consent across a state. California’s SB 145 gave judges discretion about registry placement in certain 14–17 cases; it did not change California’s age of consent, which remains 18 [3] [4]. Alaska introduced a bill to let 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds consent to talk therapy (Senate Bill 90), which lowers the consent age for that medical context but not the criminal age of sexual consent [5].
2. Why conspiracy‑style claims (e.g., “lower to age 4”) are unsupported
Multiple fact‑checks found viral posts claiming that people were trying to lower the age of consent to very young children are false; Snopes and PolitiFact say they found no evidence of serious, credible efforts to reduce the minimum to ages like 4, and they reiterate that most U.S. states set the age of consent at 16–18 [1] [7]. These posts often misread or conflate unrelated bills (e.g., registry changes or therapeutic‑consent proposals) with an alleged drive to permit sexual activity with toddlers — a claim not substantiated in the reporting provided [1].
3. What kinds of bills did appear and who sponsored them?
Available reporting and the legislative texts in the provided material identify some specific sponsors and types of bills but do not catalogue any state that proposed lowering the statutory sexual‑consent age itself since 2020. Examples in the sources: California’s SB 145 (sponsored in the state Senate by Scott Wiener) restructured registry discretion for certain offenses involving 14–17‑year‑olds but explicitly did not legalize sex with minors or alter the statutory age of consent [3] [4]. In Alaska, Senate Bill 90 — introduced by Sen. Cathy Giessel — would allow 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds to consent to talk therapy, a health‑care consent change rather than a change to sexual‑consent law [5]. The congressional bill S.2062 (Sen. Marco Rubio introduced) would bar U.S. funding to international organizations that advocate lowering ages of consent abroad, showing federal-level sensitivity but not domestic reductions of state consent ages [8].
4. Gray areas: charging statutes, plea deals and criminal‑code tweaks
Some state laws and omnibus criminal‑justice bills have adjusted charges or penalties in ways that critics call “loosening” even while the statutory age of consent remains unchanged. Reporting on Utah’s SB213 shows a 2025 legislative package that altered charging/penalty structures and enabled plea outcomes in a case — but the age of consent itself stayed at 18; the change concerned the level of the charge and prosecutorial options, and the bill’s sponsor there was Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore [9]. Social media narratives sometimes portray such technical changes as equivalent to lowering consent ages; the sources caution that this is inaccurate [9] [10].
5. Limits of the available reporting and missing pieces
The provided sources do not offer a comprehensive, state‑by‑state list of every bill introduced since 2020 that might touch any age‑related provision; nor do they identify any state sponsor who explicitly sought to lower a statutory sexual‑consent age below 16–18 in that period. If you want a complete inventory (state legislature by legislature, bill numbers and sponsors), those specific legislative records and local news reports are not in the current materials — available sources do not mention a full catalogue of such bills or sponsors beyond the examples cited (not found in current reporting).
6. How to interpret the debate: motives and political uses
Reforms that change registry rules, therapy consent, or marriage minimums are sometimes framed by advocates as correcting injustices (e.g., avoiding lifelong registries for consensual teen relationships), while opponents warn of weakening protections for minors; these debates are politically charged and have been used by activists on both sides to amplify broader narratives about culture and public safety [4] [11]. Some viral claims that a coordinated drive to radically lower consent ages exists appear to be driven by conspiracy amplification rather than by the legislative record in the supplied reporting [1] [7].
If you’d like, I can compile a targeted list of state legislative databases and local reporters to search for every bill since 2020 that explicitly proposed changing statutory sexual‑consent ages (the current sources don’t provide that full list).