Since 2022, at least eight states — Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Utah and Virginia — have codified age verification restrictions for online pornography, and lawmakers are offering similar proposals in nearly two-dozen more, according to The Associated Press. Conservative Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been leading this charge against digital porn in recent months, suing multiple adult entertainment companies under a recently enacted state law.Â
The "main difference between Texas and the other states is Paxton himself and Texas' novel strategy placing him in charge of compliance," Bloomberg Law said. While other states with similar laws rely on citizen-led lawsuits, Texas' empowerment of Paxton's office to sue pornography distributors has supercharged the enterprise and inspired other states to "soon sic their attorneys general on adult sites."
As one of the country's most vocal and controversial right-wing officeholders, Paxton is in a position to do things that "get more attention than other attorneys general," said Jonathan Saenz, the president of the conservative Texas Values group, to Bloomberg Law. In Indiana this past winter, lawmakers amended their age verification bill to grant the state's attorney general the authority to pursue suits because that office is "going to have the tools and the expertise to execute this kind of action if need be," State Sen. Mike Bohacek (R) said to NWI.com. While distributors have largely "called various states' bluff on verification laws enforced by the private suit model," the underlying calculation is "shifting" in states where attorneys general can levy hefty fines for noncompliance, Bloomberg Law said. |