Late last month, the Alaska Legislature gaveled out in Juneau, marking the end of the 2025 session. This was the first year of the two-year 34th Legislature, and over 400 bills were introduced across the House and Senate. The ACLU of Alaska worked hard throughout the session to ensure that the legislature passed bills to expand and uphold the civil rights and liberties of all Alaskans. We focused most intently on bills and committee hearings relating to election reform, the criminal legal system, and protections of our basic liberties. Here is how things played out.
Elections
Over the last few years, the legislature has considered several omnibus election reform packages but never fully passed a bill. This year, it indicated that passing an elections bill would be one of its top priorities. As the legislative session took off, the primary vehicles for comprehensive elections reform legislation became HB 43 in the House and SB 64 in the Senate.
The ACLU of Alaska supports election reform measures that would improve the accessibility of voting, especially for voters in rural Alaska, who face unique barriers and challenges due to inadequate staffing and a lack of election infrastructure. Every election, hundreds of by-mail and absentee ballots – often the only way to vote in rural Alaska – are rejected due to minor and easily fixable errors, such as a lack of a voter identifier or voter signature. Even more ballots are rejected because of the requirement for a witness signature, a requirement that the state has acknowledged that it does not review while ballot counting. Our main election reform priorities this year were the establishment of a ballot curing system and the removal of the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots. These measures would help minimize the number of ballots cast by eligible voters that are rejected.
Both HB 43 and SB 64 included provisions establishing a ballot curing system and removing the witness signature requirement, among a range of other provisions that were included in an effort to strike a bipartisan balance. You can listen to some of the testimony we presented on SB 64 here.
As the session went on, SB 64 gained the most momentum. It passed the Senate on May 12th, but stalled in the House Finance Committee in the last week of session.
Because this is the first year of Alaska’s two-year legislature, members can take up consideration of SB 64 again next year. However, we were hoping the legislature would pass a reform bill this year so that the Division of Elections would have enough time to implement changes for the 2026 elections. If it is passed next year, there would likely not be time for full implementation before the 2026 elections.
Corrections
We prioritize working to uphold the constitutional rights and dignity of people incarcerated in Alaska’s prisons and involved in the criminal legal system. This year, we were particularly focused on parole reform and ensuring accountability for deaths in the Department of Corrections' custody.
Parole
The ACLU of Alaska has been working this session to advance SB 62, a parole reform bill introduced by Senator Löki Gale Tobin. SB 62 would change the composition of the parole board to include people who can more accurately assess an applicant’s likelihood of success should they be granted discretionary parole. We believe that this is a critical step towards ensuring that incarcerated people appearing before the Board of Parole receive fair consideration.
The bill moved out of Senate State Affairs, its initial committee of referral, in April and was heard twice in Senate Labor & Commerce. It received some powerful invited testimony; testifiers emphasized how critical it is that incarcerated people see the Board of Parole as a fair and deliberate institution, rather than a group of people who will deny their applications without any explanation. Testifiers also explained that community supervision is much more cost-effective than incarceration. It costs $202 per day at a minimum to house someone in a prison and about $13 a day to supervise them in the community, while they work and pay for their own housing, food, and healthcare. Currently, the Board of Parole grants discretionary parole only 25% of the time, a number that is historically low and that the Board of Parole is unable to explain. SB 62 would also require better transparency from the board so the state can better understand who is being denied and why.
Senator Tobin introduced a similar bill, SB 176, last session. In addition to parole board composition, that bill also included provisions intended to address the board’s practice of using parole proceedings to assert their views on how much prison time is “enough” for a person to serve, something that the legislature and courts already have deliberate frameworks for. While these provisions were taken out of the bill this year, we still support their intent.
While SB 62 did not move out of Senate Labor & Commerce this year, we plan on working to advance the bill further next year.
Deaths in Custody
The ACLU of Alaska is pushing for mechanisms that improve transparency and accountability of the Department of Corrections to create safer and more humane living conditions in Alaska’s jails and prisons. This session, the House State Affairs Committee and the House Judiciary Committee both held informational hearings focused on deaths in the Department of Corrections' custody. These hearings were an important step towards ensuring that the legislature is aware of what is going on inside facilities.
The Judiciary hearing went into deep detail about how the Department of Corrections and related agencies like the Department of Public Safety handle and investigate deaths in custody, and what they are doing to prevent deaths. In particular, the family members of multiple people who died in prison came forward to deliver powerful testimony that revealed the impact that these deaths truly have.
We hope that these hearings will provide a building block for achieving more transparency and oversight, and we will continue working with the legislature to advance these goals.
Free Speech and Immigration
The same bill to stifle protest that we saw introduced by Governor Dunleavy last year was reintroduced this year, as HB 71/SB 74. The bill seeks to use criminal and financial penalties to chill and punish speech, via criminalizing the “obstruction of public places.” This year’s bill is even more extreme than last year’s: it is even broader and contains heightened penalties. Thankfully, HB 71 was only heard once in its initial committee of referral, and SB 255 was never heard. In HB 71’s hearing, the committee received over 500 messages from the public in opposition to the bill – a clear sign that it does not make sense for Alaska.
In February, Executive Director Mara Kimmel was part of a group that testified to the House Judiciary Committee on immigration in Alaska. Joined by representatives from other Alaska organizations that work on immigration, she provided the committee with needed information on immigrant communities in Alaska and the complexities of the immigration process.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who called elected officials, sent emails, and showed up to testify in support of Alaskans' civil rights and liberties this session. We look forward to continuing to build our relationships with you this summer and fall.