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Which federal lawmakers have sponsored bills to lower the federal age of consent and what were the bill numbers?
Executive summary
There is limited, mixed coverage in the provided materials about federal lawmakers sponsoring bills to “lower the federal age of consent.” Congress.gov shows one recent House bill that would lower the age for trying minors as adults in the District of Columbia to 14 (H.R.5140) [1]. Other items in the set refer to bills touching related topics — federal restrictions on funding international groups that advocate lowering local consent ages (S.2062) and past or state-level proposals on consent or minors’ ability to consent to medical or mental‑health care — but the sources do not show a clear list of federal sponsors seeking a nationwide reduction of the criminal age of sexual consent [2] [3] [4].
1. What the record in these sources actually shows
The clearest federal legislative item in the search set is H.R.5140 in the 119th Congress, described as a bill “to lower the age at which a minor may be tried as an adult for certain criminal offenses in the District of Columbia to 14 years of age” [1]. The Congress.gov entry summarizes the bill’s purpose; the provided snippet does not list the bill sponsor by name in the supplied extract [1]. Another federal text in the set, S.2062 from the 118th Congress, would prohibit U.S. contributions to international organizations that advocate for sexual activity by persons younger than locally prescribed minimum ages of consent — a measure aimed at foreign advocacy and funding rather than lowering domestic consent ages [2].
2. What the sources do not show (important absence)
Available sources do not mention a catalogue of named federal lawmakers sponsoring bills expressly to lower the nationwide federal age of sexual consent. The set includes state bills and commentary about state changes (for example, Maryland or Alaska) and advocacy alerts claiming certain bills would lower minors’ medical‑consent ages, but it lacks authoritative Congressional sponsorship lists for multiple federal measures lowering U.S. age‑of‑consent thresholds [4] [5] [6].
3. Confusion between different legal meanings: criminal age, medical consent, and marriage
Reporting and advocacy in the provided items mix several different topics that can be conflated in public discussion: (a) criminal age of sexual consent and statutory‑rape rules (state domain, typically 16–18), (b) age at which minors may consent to medical or behavioral health care (different statutes; e.g., Maryland’s law allowing certain mental‑health consent as young as 12) [4], and (c) marriage minimum ages set by states (many state bills seek to raise to 18) [7] [8]. The sources show federal attention to related issues (e.g., Title X notification, COPPA/KOSA on minors’ online safety), but not a coherent federal campaign to lower the nationwide age of sexual consent [3] [9].
4. Examples in the material that feed the rumor mill
Advocacy groups and some outlets cited in the set warn of bills that, in their view, would lower minors’ consent for medical or behavioral‑health services — for example, alerts claiming Senate bills would permit minors as young as 13 to consent to behavioral health care without parental notice [6]. Snopes and other fact‑checking content in the set counter at least some viral claims about statutes “changing the legal age of consent,” noting such laws may change charge classes or non‑retroactive procedures but “do not alter the legal age of consent” in a broader sense [10].
5. State activity vs. federal action — the crucial distinction
Most clear legislative movement in the provided materials is at the state level: states updating marriage minimums, adjusting ages for medical consent, or debating age‑of‑consent statutes [7] [8] [5]. Federal bills in the set are more limited and issue‑specific — for example, H.R.5140 pertains to the District of Columbia juvenile‑to‑adult charging threshold [1], and S.2062 targets U.S. funding of international advocacy about consent norms [2]. The evidence in these sources shows federal attention to related topics but does not document a suite of federal sponsors pushing to lower the nationwide age of sexual consent.
6. How to verify sponsorship and intent if you want to dig deeper
To confirm which federal lawmakers sponsored any particular bill and to read full sponsor lists or texts, consult the official Congress.gov bill page (the H.R.5140 entry is already cited here) and the bill text or sponsor header on that site; the current snippets identify H.R.5140 and S.2062 by number and purpose but do not include full sponsor names in the supplied extracts [1] [2]. For debates about medical consent or state‑level age changes referenced here — e.g., Maryland’s SB41 — check the state legislature’s site or the full bill text cited by the Maryland Psychiatric Society summary [4].
Limitations: this analysis uses only the provided search results and therefore cannot assert the existence or nonexistence of other federal sponsors or bills beyond those documents. If you want, I can pull the sponsor name and full text for H.R.5140 and S.2062 from Congress.gov (if you provide those pages) and list sponsors and cosponsors with citations.