Legislative Update: 3.27.23
Age Verification Bills
We’ve now reached 29 age verification bills either passed or pending in legislatures around the country. Since our last update, there are been a number of other new developments:
- Montana and Texas introduced new bills.
- Tennessee’s device filter bill failed.
- Arkansas’ bill passed House with amendments and was referred back to Senate committee
- Virginia’s bill was sent to the governor to sign; FSC sent him a letter urging him to veto it
- Arizona’s bill passed the second committee
- One of Mississippi’s bills was completely rewritten in Conference Committee to focus on schools (the other one is still in Conference Committee)
Banking Fairness Bills
With Pennsylvania’s introduction of HB 334, there have been 8 banking fairness bills introduced so far this year. Unfortunately, they’ve not gotten the traction we would hope. Here are their updated statuses:
| Legislature | Current Status | Last Updated |
| Tennessee | Failed | March 14 |
| Arkansas | Passed first committee | March 14 |
| Pennsylvania | Introduced | March 13 |
| New Hampshire | Failed | March 12 |
| West Virginia | Failed | March 11 |
| Nebraska | Introduced | February 13 |
| US Congress | Introduced | February 7 |
| Oklahoma | Introduced | February 6 |
Other News
Vermont joined Hawai’i in introducing a bill that would decriminalize sex work in the state.
The SAFE TECH Act was reintroduced in Congress. It would remove a platform’s Section 3230 liability protection in any circumstance where “the provider or user has accepted payment to make the speech available or, in whole or in part, created or funded the creation of the speech.” This bill failed last year, but may gain more traction in our current political environment.