# Wetterling Act *Federal sex offender registration requirement enacted in 1994; its registration provisions were replaced in 2006.* The **Wetterling Act**, entered in the Minnesota Time Table as the Jacob Wetterling Act, is the federal sex offender registration requirement dated to 13 September 1994.[^1] It is named for [[Jacob Wetterling]]. The same Time Table row records that Patty Wetterling's advocacy, begun in October 1989, became law with it.[^1] On 27 July 2006 the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (H.R. 4472, 109th Congress) was signed. According to the Time Table, it replaced the Wetterling Act's registration provisions and expanded registration permanently.[^2] The project's at-issue record traces the 1994 mandate to a single unsolved abduction in Stearns County, Minnesota. It records that the woman it describes as the law's namesake later said she had turned "180 (degrees)" from her earlier position.[^3] ## Who - The law bears the name of Jacob Wetterling.[^1] - Patty Wetterling's advocacy from October 1989 is recorded as the effort that became law in 1994.[^1] ## What - The act set a federal sex offender registration requirement.[^1] - Its registration provisions were replaced by those of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which expanded registration permanently.[^2] ## When - October 1989: Patty Wetterling's advocacy begins.[^1] - 13 September 1994: the Jacob Wetterling Act's registration requirement becomes law.[^1] - 27 July 2006: the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is signed.[^2] ## In the at-issue record At-issue item AI-Stearns-006, in the project's Stearns package, states that a single unsolved Stearns County abduction produced the first federal mandate that every state maintain a sex-offender registry. It further states that, twenty-two years after enactment, the woman the item calls the law's namesake said: "I've turned 180 (degrees) from where I was." The item also states that the registry remains in place and has been expanded twice more since.[^3] The item is anchored to a White House presidential action of March 2025, *Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos*.[^4] The project's stated rationale for that anchor is "a national architecture built on one county's unresolved record."[^3] The record shows the 1994 enactment, the 2006 replacement and the later statement. It does not establish the reasons for any of them.[^1][^2][^3] ## In the Minnesota record ### What The Minnesota Time Table files the 1994 enactment under its federal-proceedings theory (T7: Federal Proceedings). That row links the federal registration requirement to advocacy that began in Minnesota in October 1989.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: GovTrack.us, *H.R. 324, 103rd Congress* (1994) — bill record cited by Minnesota Time Table row TL-0616, which dates the Jacob Wetterling Act's federal sex offender registration requirement to 13 September 1994 and records Patty Wetterling's advocacy from October 1989 becoming law. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr324 [^2]: Congress.gov, *H.R. 4472, 109th Congress: Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act* (2006) — bill record cited by Time Table row TL-0754 for the act signed 27 July 2006, which replaced the Wetterling Act's registration provisions and expanded registration permanently. https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/4472 [^3]: Minnesota wiki, *At-issue record AI-Stearns-006* (Stearns package; source RESEARCH_Wetterling_Diocese.md ¶31–34) — states the Stearns County origin, the "180 (degrees)" statement and the later expansions. The record lists its sources by domain only (apmreports.org, congress.gov, presidency.ucsb.edu); no link to them is in this record. [^4]: The White House, *Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos* (March 2025) — presidential action used as the anchor for at-issue item AI-Stearns-006; it does not itself contain the statements attributed in that item. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/stopping-waste-fraud-and-abuse-by-eliminating-information-silos/