Legislative Update: 4.24.23

The last two weeks have been busy on the age verification front!

Arizona SB 1503

Arizona’s age-verification bill is killed — or at least undead — after arguments made by FSC regarding constitutionality and privacy and the availability of device level filters helped sway legislators! The AZ House rejected the bill in a 31-26 vote on April 10. Supporters of the bill passed a motion to reconsider that vote, which is scheduled to be held on or before May 8. Stay tuned!

Arkansas SB 66 (Now Act 612)

On April 11, Arkansas’ AVS law was enacted. It is virtually identical to Louisiana’s bill, except that it allows for use of “any commercially reasonable age verification method that holds an Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2).” It will take effect at the end of July.

Montana SB 544

After a slow start, Montana’s AVS bill has been flying through the legislature in order to beat the May 9 deadline. In the last week, it was passed in committee and a surprisingly non-unanimous preliminary vote in the House. It is scheduled for a final vote today (April 24).

Several Bills Pass First Legislative Chamber

When a bill passes the chamber (House or Senate) that it originates in, we designate it as having passed the first chamber. These bills passed their first chambers in the past week:

• Louisiana’s PAVE Act, which would allow the state attorney general to prosecute adult websites that do not perform age verification, passed the House on 4/17.

• Texas SB 2021, a Louisiana copycat with an additional provision that requires websites to add “health warnings” to their websites, passed the Senate on 4/18.

And finally, Alabama has jumped into the fray with a device filter bill.