South Dakota Attorney General Calls for Age Verification Law

PIERRE, S.D.—South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, a Republican aligned with Project 2025 pressure groups, urged several state lawmakers Wednesday to adopt age verification legislation targeting adult websites during the upcoming legislative session beginning in January 2025.  Jackley pitched the concept to the Legislature's Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Internet Access by Minors during its second meeting in Pierre. He urged the committee to carry criminal penalties in any proposed age verification statute and said it should be "narrowly tailored." This is a similar tactic adopted by other Republican state lawmakers who claim to be holding internet companies and the parent firms of pornography websites accountable for exposing minors to age-restricted content. However, this is a stretch in many civil liberties circles, which has prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case Free Speech Coalition et al v. Paxton which challenges the constitutionality of the age verification law adopted in Texas. By granting the petition for writ of certiorari, the conservative-leaning high court is expected to hear oral arguments during the next term of the court. Jackley mentioned this during his pitch to the lawmakers of the study committee, reports South Dakota Searchlight. He said in a press statement from his office, "I am encouraging Legislative support for age verification protections for minors accessing harmful internet content. Such protections should include an enforcement provision, not against minors, but against those supplying the content without adequate protections for children."  An age verification proposal stalled in the legislature this past legislative session, as AVN previously reported. Originally, House Bill (HB) 1257 would have implemented so-called "reasonable" age verification requirements on adult websites. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee deferred it to the 41st day of the legislative session, and there are only 40 legislative days. Instead, the Senate redrafted the bill as a resolution to compel the executive committee of the Legislative Research Council to study the legal impacts of mandatory age verification laws. Lawmakers were unable to agree on the legislation, though. As mentioned, Attorney General Jackley is considered far-right. Journalists in the Lakota Nation call Jackley a "proven racist." Jackley also pledged to uphold the Moms for Liberty promise. Moms for Liberty is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign. It is also aligned with Project 2025, which is coordinated by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation. AVN reported that Project 2025 is an initiative that wants to censor and outlaw legal pornography that is protected by the First Amendment.