It’s nice to see Louisiana out in front of state policy for once, courtesy of a legislator who has served less time than just about anybody else in Baton Rouge.
Fashionable, with good reason, is the listing of ways in which the state is behind the curve of many of its brethren. While its neighbors cut taxes in significant ways, put some brakes on spending growth prior to this year, and slap restraints on unaccountable bureaucracy in education and other areas, Louisiana made no progress in these areas, mainly because of an obstinate leftist throwback governor in Democrat John Bel Edwards and also weak-kneed so-called conservative leadership in the Legislature.
But the state has pioneered policy in restricting minors’ access to overly sexualized material. Act 436 by Republican state Sen. Heather Cloud, which received much attention and a begrudging assent from Edwards, has libraries create cataloguing and patron borrowing systems that give parents greater control over their children’s media consumption. While measures in several other states address operating funds for libraries as tools to gain compliance with procedures such as these, Louisiana’s is unique in as it leaves operating funds alone and instead would impair the borrowing ability of parish authorities if they don’t comply.
Yet preceding this, last year, GOP new Rep. Laurie Schlegel introduced and had passed into law with little dissent a potentially more far-reaching measure, simple in concept but devastatingly effective: have users of web sites with enough sexually explicit material provide positive proof of age, typically government-issued, in order to access material. Her rationale cited research conclusions, although some disputed, about psychological ills and deviant behavior that childhood pornography consumption could trigger.
This certainly has had an effect on minors in Louisiana having access to such sites, although perhaps creating another customer base for purveyors of fake IDs. However, it also had a substantial impact on overall consumption from Louisiana. Pornhub, a popular site for explicit material that ranks in the top dozen in the world, reported an 80 percent drop over the year in state-based consumers.
That because many users, who don’t bat an eye with age verification in other contexts, suddenly became skittish at uploading a copy of the driver’s license to a porn site. With that experience, as other states began to copy Louisiana – six so far this year and likely many more next year – Pornhub simply stopped allowing access to users originating in those states (although this can be defeated if a user utilizes a virtual private network).
This year, another Schlegel enacted bill built upon that success by giving increased investigatory powers to the attorney general that could bring civil penalties as allowed in last year’s law. That it went through adds to a remarkable record she is building: of the 13 bills designed to become laws that she has had go onto the legislative calendar, 11 have made it to the finish line.
Naturally, the porn industry isn’t a fan of her efforts and has sued to try to stop such laws going into effect, with a specious argument that they imperil the First Amendment. But the judiciary has given wide latitude for states to limit expression when it comes to minors, and asking for proof of age isn’t a burdensome request to access material. As an indicator of the infirmity of that argument, earlier this month a court in Utah tossed the complaint against its law as the state doesn’t enforce criminal penalties on the miscreant but allows citizens to file civil suits. Louisiana’s allows the state to impose civil penalties, and is being sued on the basis of vagueness, despite rather exacting criteria built into the law.
At this point, such suits seem long shots to succeed, and their failure would cement a legacy for the state, contrary to its current one endorsed by Edwards of clinging to a past defined by policies promoting a failed worldview that have led to its depopulation, retarded economic growth, and overzealous government trying too hard to aid preferred special interests.
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